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I'll chime in with my 4.0/5.0 result in a large national tournament this past weekend, good enough to tie for first and win the big money. Started off strong with 3 wins and ended up finishing with 2 draws. Mostly solid games but one game where I swindled a draw. I'll post my games with some proper annotations in a few days.
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Jun 9, 2014 16:32
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So this is the first time that I have every played at this particular tournament. It’s a bit of a grind – three rounds on Saturday and two more on Sunday – and I don’t expect to be doing it again any time soon. I stayed in residence at the local university on a bed whose mattress could probably best be described as hay made from concrete, so I wasn’t very well rested for day 1. Add to that that there was no food to be bought on campus, and I wasn’t in the best shape overall. This may have contributed to the fact that, while I played decently well overall, I blundered pretty severely a few times and was generally tactically blind throughout. All games are 90 minutes with 30 seconds increment per move. First round is against someone I’ve played twice before. We most recently played to a draw in 2010. I believe he is entitled to an FM title although he has never claimed it. [Round "1"] [White "2205"] [Black "2442"] [ECO "C43"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 This caught me somewhat offguard. We had played a game in this opening back in 2009 and I had gotten quite a good position out of the opening. His son had previously told me that he was quite unhappy with the game, and he had largely pushed aside playing the Petroff for a few years. 3.d4 exd4 4.e5 Ne4 5.Qxd4 d5 6.exd6 Nxd6 7.Bd3 Nc6 8.Qf4 Qf6?! The new move and, as the database search confirms, a total novelty. I ended up declining to take the queen because I felt he got too much play for it, despite the bad pawns. Whlie there aren’t any concrete lines, Bg4 for him would be very strong, as would Nb4. 9.O-O Qxf4 10.Bxf4 h6 11.Nc3 Be6 12.Rfe1 O-O-O 13.Rad1 I played this move as part of normal development, but I think it was a mistake. Rather, white should play a3 to keep black’s knight off of b4. I have a broader general problem, too, in that I don’t really have a plan as to how I will proceed. 13…g5 14.Bg3 Bg7 15.Ne5 Nb4 16.a3 Nxd3 17.Nxd3 a6 18.Be5 Bxe5 19.Nxe5 I didn’t play Rxe5 because I thought he had Nc4 winning a pawn. He doesn’t of course, as my knight on d3 defends everything. My game now becomes quite difficult – my c4 square is very week and to solve that I have to put my pawns on light-coloured squares. 19…Rhe8 20.b3 Bf5 21.Rc1!? 21.Rd2 f6 22.Nf6 g4! -+ 21…Ne4 22.Nxe4 Rxe5 23.f3 Rde8 24.Rf1 R8e6 25.Ng3 My plan here is to open up space and trade some pieces, simplifying things into equality. 23…Bg6 26.f4 gxf4 27.Rxf4 Re1+ 28.Rf1 Rxc1 29.Rxc1 Re3 30.c3 Rd3 31.Nf1 c5 32.Kf2 Kc7 33.Ke2 Rd6 34.Ne3=  With centralizing my king and knight, I think I’ve achieved equality. There are still two difficult hitches to the position, though. The first is that I can’t play Rf1 like I want, because of Bd3+. The second is that I don’t really want to trade rooks here – since there’s play on both sides of the board his bishop would probably be better than my knight. The goal, then, is to find a way to get my rook active. 34…Kc6 35.g3 Bd3+ 36.Ke1 b5 37.Rd1 c4 38.bxc4 Not an easy decision. I know that if I take he has a clear plan to bring his king to a4. However, I think that I can claim the open file for myself. 38…bxc4 39.Rd2 Rf6 40.Rb2 h5 41.Rb4 a5 42.Rb8 Rf3 43.Rc8+?? Kd7 0-1 43.Nd1 and I’m just fine, as my rook is now active and can probably pick up his wing pawns easily enough. A pretty disappointing end given that to that point I was happy to play my way back into equality against someone who is known for being good at endgames. After this I was told that I had 30 minutes for lunch, and it was 15 minutes each way to anywhere with food. Oh well. Round 2 I’m playing some 11 year old kid I’ve never heard of before. I played a Sicilian in a rated game for the first time since April 2011 – I think I’m much more solid with the Philidor but it doesn’t provide the best winning chances. If I’m playing some kid, I want to win. [Round "2"] [White "2037"] [Black "2205"] [ECO "C00"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d3 d5 Of course, after I decide to play a Sicilian, white goes for a King’s Indian Attack set-up. I play for the most active response – challenging the centre out of pure principle. After all, in any Sicilian, if you can get in d5 without immediately losing then you do it. 4.Nbd2 Nc6 5.g3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be7 7.O-O b6 8.Re1 dxe4 Probably inferior to 0-0, but I want to fix his pawn structure and shut off his light-coloured bishop. Trading on e4 also changes the character of the position – from closed to semi-closed – and I’m counting on a kid not being able to play two different types of games. 9.dxe4 e5 10.Nc4 Qc7 11.c3 O-O 12.a4 Be6 13.Na3 a6 14.Ng5 Bg4! Reorganizing my rook and bishop with tempo, while screwing up his pawn structure. 15.f3 Rad8 16.Qe2 Bc8 17.f4?  As a general rule, you shouldn’t break in the centre if you’re behind in development (notable exception being if you’re countering a wing attack). Here, white is very far behind in development, with a rook and knight hosed off on the a-file and his other knight and dark-squared bishop not being very well placed. Meanwhile, all of white’s pieces are at least moderately active with the exception of the still-acceptable kingside rook. I decide to go for a bit of a cheeky plan to claim the centre, a bit of tactical shamelessness counting on him making an intuitive but weak response. 17…Ng4?! 18.h3? What I wanted. Now I can station a knight on e5. 18…exf4! 19.Bxf4 19.gxf4 Bxg5! 20.fxg5 Nge5 -/+ 19…Nge5 -/+ 20.Nf3 Bd6 21.Rad1 Be6 22.Nxe5 Bxe5 23.Rf1 Rxd1 Temporarily surrendering the d-file in exchange for tempo to penetrate on the queenside. I want to be somewhat quick because I’m a little worried about white figuring out Na3=>c2=>e3=>d5. 24.Qxd1 Na5 25.b4 Nc4 26.Nxc4 Bxc4 27.Rf2 Qe7 28.bxc5 Qxc5 29.Qf3 Bb3 30.Bxe5 Qxe5 31.Bf1 a5! Allowing white to keep the pawn, but leaving terminal weaknesses on both the darksquares and h3. 32.Bb5 Be6 33.Kg2 Rc8 34.c4 Qd4 -+  Black dominates the centre, while white doesn’t even have anywhere to attack. To protect the c- and a-pawns, white has effectively removed his bishop from the game. White is positionally lost. 35.Ba6 Rd8 36.Rc2 Qd7 Inevitably, black wins a pawn. 37.Bb5 Bxh3+ 38.Kh2 Qe6 Missing 38…Bg4 39.Bxd7 Bxf3 40.Bc6 Rd6! with the threat of Rh6+=>Rh1+=>Rh2+ winning the white rook on c2. 39.Qf4 Bg4 40.Kg2 Bh5 After making the move, I start panicking because I just realized that black has Qg5 forking my bishop and rook. This doesn’t work, however, since black would have Qxe4+. 41.c5 Bg6 42.Re2? The justification behind 41.c5 was that it gave him a hint of activity. Now he gives it all back, with a pawn as bonus. 42…bxc5 43.e5 Rd4 44.Qf3 h5 Both giving my king some luft and looking to eliminate the last defender on his king. I’m happy if his queen takes my pawn on a5, since that’s on the wrong side of the board. He takes the pawn, because he’s a kid, and I am able to finish the game quickly. 45.Qa8+ Kh7 46.Qxa5 Qd5+ 47.Kh2 h4 48.Qc3 Rd1 49.Rg2 Be4 50.Rg1 hxg3+ 51.Qxg3 Qd2+ 52.Kh3 Bf5+ 53.Qg4 Qh6+ 54.Kg2 Rxg1+ 55.Kxg1 Bxg4 56.a5 Qd2 57.a6 Bf3 58.Bf1 g6 59.a7 Ba8 60.Bh3 c4 0-1 Another too-short break, and I’m back this time against an 8-year-old. This game should have been an easy win, but (with the help of it being the third game in the day) I made it too hard on myself. [Round "3"] [White "2205"] [Black "2953"] [ECO "C68"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 I’m happy to actually get to play this line. I don’t often get the chance. 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O Bd6 This is a very bad line. I have had white win in 11-13 moves in this line. Luckily for him he chooses to return the bishop pair instead of getting totally blown out. 6.d4 Bg4 6…exd4 7.Qxd4 f6 8.c4 Bg4 9.e5 Bxf3 10.exd6 Bh5 11.Re1+ Kf8 12.Qc5 1-0 2011 7.dxe5 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Bxe5 9.Rd1 Qe7 10.Nc3 Better is Na3, as in these positions the white knight often wants to be on c4. 10…Nf6 11.Bf4 O-O 12.Bxe5 Qxe5 13.Qg3! I’m playing a kid. I want to play an endgame. They don’t understand endgames. This endgame is also, generally, better for white. 13…Qxg3 14.hxg3 Rfe8 15.f3 c5?  Allowing Nd5 which creates what should be a nearly-winning endgame for white. However, I don’t play it, because I feel like my practical chances are better with knights on the board. 16.Kf2 Rad8 17.Ke3 g6 18.g4 g5 19.a4 b6 20.Ne2? Ye olde think for 20 minutes before blundering. I’m not losing this position, but dropping the pawn goes a long way towards undoing any winning chances. I played what I did because his f5 and h5 squares should be critical weaknesses with knights on the board. I want to manoeuver my knight over there to take advantage of the holes. 20…Nd5+ 21.Kf2 Nb4 22.Rac1 Rxd1 23.Rxd1 Nxc2 24.Rd7 Rc8 25.Ng3 Nd4 26.Nh5 b5 A big incident to tactical blindness. Somehow I think that he just let me fork his pawns, missing that Ne6 defenders both c5 and g5. What I actually have is (the somewhat difficult to see) 27.Nf6+ Kg7 28.Rxc7! Rxc7 29.Ne8+ returning to material equality. The knight endgame will still be difficult to win, though, since there aren’t that many pawns left on the board. 27.axb5 axb5 28.Rd5 Ne6 29.g3 c6 30.Rd7 c4 31.Ke3 b4 1/2-1/2 He offered the draw, and I sat for about 30 minutes. If I could find any way to play on at all I would’ve taken it, but so long as his knight has Nf8 I can’t threaten anything more than perpetual attacks. He thought I could play 32. Rd2 holding easily, but that loses emphatically to 32…Rd8 33.Rc2 Rd3+ 34.Kf2 Rxf3+. After this I had dinner, some beer, and watched the hockey. The beer was actually not the best idea, since the place I was staying also didn’t have anything to drink from so there was no water for when I got back (or for the morning after). This meant that I showed up for my morning round – against another kid – in pretty poor shape. [Round "4"] [White "2027"] [Black "2205"] [ECO "B43"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Bd3 Nf6 7.O-O Bc5 8.Nb3 Ba7 The more active/ambitious sideline (RR: Be7). I don’t fully understand it, but it plays simply enough. 9.Qe2 Nc6 10.h3 O-O 11.Be3 d5 To be honest, I don’t fully understand the theory behind letting black take on h7 and then recapturing with the rook. However, I am confident that it is right, and I also want to take my chance to break in the centre. Both sides now begin the usual IQP plan of building up on the d-file. 12.Bxa7 Rxa7 13.exd5 exd5 14.Rae1 Bd7 15.Qf3 Qd6 16.Rd1 Be6 17.Rfe1 b5 18.a3 Rd7 19.Bf1  Now a pretty hard decision. From the standpoint of general theory, I want to take the opportunity to push the pawn. I’m taking space, and opening up both my bishop and kingside knight. However, in this position, I think that white has the ability to simplify out the game. For example – 19…d4 20.Ne4 Nxe4 21.Qxe4 Bxb3 22.axb3 and despite the supported passer, I don’t see how black will ever break the blockade on d3. The flipside, however, is that I know that white can now put a knight on d4 – also eliminating my knight controlling d4 – making the position quite difficult for me. The plan I settle on is pretty theoretical (I’ve been reading My System) – in IQP positions the side with the IQP has strong points on the squares controlled by the pawn. For me, these are e4 and c4, so I seek to manoeuver my knight there. 19…Rfd8 20.Nd4 Nxd4 21.Rxd4 Qc6 22.Red1 Rd6 23.g4? The thing about playing children is that they will often introduce weaknesses into their position without understanding the ramifications. 23…Nd7 24.Qg3 Nb6 25.Bg2 f5! -/+ Attacking white’s weakness. Not only does white face an opening of the kingside, black has already lifted a rook to the 6-file. 26.gxf5 Bxf5 27.Qe5 Be6 White has an interesting problem. All his pieces are ideally placed, but that doesn’t give him any advantage. This forces him to pursue simplifications that leave black better. 28.Ne4 Nc4 29.Rxc4 bxc4 30.Nxd6 Qxd6 31.Qd4  An interesting position. White’s position is very weak. His kingside is garbage, and the b2-pawn is actually also a huge target. However, in his favour, the blockade on d4 is doing a great job of restraining Black. What I have to do now is find a way to attack the wings while keeping the d5-pawn supported. 31…Qd7 32.Re1 Kh8 Thinking that h3 was defended on account of 32…Bxh3 33.Bxd5+ Qxd5 34.Re8+ Kf7 35.Rxd8 but at the end there’s 35…Qg2#. So, instead, I try to get my king safe from tactics. 33.h4 h6 34.Re5 Bg8 35.Kh1 White offers a draw, clearly out of ideas. However, by lifting the rook, he’s given Black the needed trade to become active. 35…Re8 36.c3 Rxe5 37.Qxe5 Qg4-/+  Black is now active, and has a much better endgame. White can defend stubbornly, but has too many weaknesses. Black is only held back by a somewhat tepid bishop on g8. My plan is to find a way to attack the wings forcing white to defend, and then to leverage pushing the pawn to d4. This does all of getting white’s c4 pawn one square closer to queening, removing White’s target of attack, allowing Black to attack b2 from the centre, and eliminating White’s ability to blockade in the centre of the board. 38.Qe7 Qd1+ 39.Kh2 Qd2 40.Qf8 Qe2 41.Kg1 Qe1+ 42.Kh2 Qe5+ 43.Kg1 d4 -+ White now has to surrender h4 to hold b2. 44.cxd4 Qxd4 45.Qb8 Qxh4 46.Qb6 Qg4 47.f3 Qf4 48.a4 h5?! My idea is simple and I don’t think that the move is bad, but I could’ve done better. My thinking was sort of as follows – if the game reduces into a queen endgame, then the most advanced pawn will usually determine the winner. There were some lines where black could trade the a6 and c4 pawns for the f3 and b2 pawns. However, then, white’s a4 pawn would be the furthest advanced. Pushing the h-pawn also helps black put more pressure on Black’s king. However, it also means that I can’t play Qf6 to trade queens anymore – White could push a5 meaning that the only way Black could defend both queenside pawns would be to put the bishop on b5. Instead, what I might want to play here, is a5!!?. I’m very happy to trade the a-pawn for the b-pawn since my c-pawn is strongest in that case. As it happens, white lets this trade happen but my h-pawn being advanced creates a new difficulty. 49.Qa5 Bf7 50.Qxa6 Qd4+ 51.Kh2 Qxb2 52.Qa8+ Bg8 53.Qa5 Qb8+ 54.Kh1 Bf7 55.Qf5 Qc7 56.f4 Suddenly white is very active. Here, I take the time to make sure that I’m still fast and I have defences that hold. However, the think puts us in mutual time pressure. 56…c3 57.Be4 Kg8 58.a5 g6 59.Qe5?? Qc4? Time pressure leading me to miss that I had 59… Qxe5 60.dxe5 Kf8! 61.a6 Bc6!! -+ Black is still winning. 60.f5 c2 61.Qb8+ Kh7 62.fxg6+ Bxg6 63.Qa7+ Kh6 64.Qe3+ Kg7 65.Qa7+ Qf7 66.Qd4+ Kh7? A couple of dodgy moves in time pressure. Winning is 66…Qf6 67.Qa7+ Kh6 68.Qe3+ Qg5 White now has a perpetual, though that’s far from a guarantee with so little time left on the clock. 67.Bxg6+ Kxg6 68.Qd3+?? White no longer has a perpetual. The goal now is to get the king down to support the pawn, with Black’s queen providing the necessary threats to block a check with a check. 68…Qf5 69.Qd6+ Kf7 70.Qc7+ Ke6 71.Qc8+ Ke5 72.Qc5+ Kf4 73.Qf2+ Kg4 74.Qd4+ Kf3 75.Qc3+ Ke2 76.Qb2 Qe4+ 77.Kg1 Kd1 78.Qb3 Qe1+ 79.Kh2 h4 80.a6 Qg3+ 0-1 That was tiring. And, of course, I once again had a too-short lunch break. It was raining this time, too. This led to a rather unfortunate game 5. [Round "5"] [White "2205"] [Black "2286"] [ECO "B58"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be2 e5 After three kids, I’ve got an older guy this time. Accordingly, I’m a little worried he has checked out my game against Li so I decided to deviate. Which I should do, anyway, since 7.Nf3 is superior. 7.Nf3 Be7 8.O-O h6 9.Bc4 Be6 10.Bb3 O-O 11.Qe2 d5?! We discussed the game afterwards, and he said that he feels it’s often better to play with the initiative in the last round when everyone is tired. The pawn sacrifice isn’t sound and I should take it, but I thought simply exchanging created a tamer game. 12.Nxd5 Nxd5 13.exd5 Bxd5 14.Bxd5 14.Nxe5 Nd4 and White is going to have trouble organizing everything, while Black has two good bishops. The extra pawn will be doubled on b2/b3, too. 14…Qxd5 15.Rd1 Qe6 16.b3?  I thought this was going into a line where I give two rooks for the queen, but get an active position that should let me simplifying things into a draw. I missed something at the end of the line, though. 16…e4 17.Nd4 Nxd4 18.Rxd4 Bf6 19.Bb2 Realizing that 19.Rxe4 Qxe4 20.Rxe4 is not met with Bxa1 but Rfe8. 19…Bxd4 20.Bxd4 f5 21.Re1 a6 22.Qe3 b5 23.c3 Rae8 0-1 White has no play. At the end, I will probably lose enough points to drop below 2200, which is unfortunate. However, outside of the blunders, I think that I played quite well. Hopefully a less taxing schedule means fewer blunders, and much better results.
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Jun 9, 2014 21:42
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Thanks, great annotation!
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Jun 10, 2014 08:41
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Well hello there chess thread. I recently signed up on Chess.com as "GetTheeToARookery". I'm a terrible player who intermittently goes through bouts of being serious about chess, being bored with chess, and being way interested in getting back into chess. Right now I guess I'm in the last stage there. For people who paid for Premium Memberships on Chess.com, what upgrade package did you purchase? Seems like the only thing Platinum lacks are video lessons and unlimited Chess Mentor training (Platinum only gets 5 Chess Mentor lessons/day). Are the video lessons worth twice the price?
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Jun 10, 2014 21:49
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Those annotations are amazing, Hand Knit. I know this thread isn't very active, but that doesn't mean the posts you put so much effort into aren't appreciated.
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Jun 26, 2014 13:30
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Analyzing your games in that level of detail is an important part of improving. I've definitely noticed that several hours of playing standard chess and then analyzing it goes much further than several dozen hours of playing blitz.
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Jul 2, 2014 00:56
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Playing blitz only refines your ability to play blitz.
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Jul 2, 2014 01:11
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13 games in just over 2 weeks and I think my form is coming undone. Just got run over by a 1600. Luckily for me, he is in the improvement stage which means that he doesn't yet know how to finish attacks, so he allowed me a repetition in a ~-6 position.AdorableStar posted:Playing blitz only refines your ability to play blitz. I have a friend who hit IM (with norms, not fake zonal crap) using almost only blitz to train :/
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Jul 14, 2014 19:43
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Hand Knit posted:13 games in just over 2 weeks and I think my form is coming undone. Just got run over by a 1600. Luckily for me, he is in the improvement stage which means that he doesn't yet know how to finish attacks, so he allowed me a repetition in a ~-6 position.
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Jul 14, 2014 23:38
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Spug posted:What's your elo? ~2020 and dropping fast. By the end of this trip I think I'll have dropped about 50 or more points since drawing Li.
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Jul 15, 2014 12:32
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Sounds like you just need a bit of a break. 13 games in 2 weeks is quite a lot. Mental exhaustion and all that.
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Jul 15, 2014 13:53
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So after that mess of a game, I started playing really well (albeit blundering a pair of would-have-been-great wins into draws) and finished tied for eighth. Only loss was to the winner, who put up a picket fence. I'll write up the games on the flights home, so I guess they should show up on the 24th or 25th.
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Jul 19, 2014 22:00
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Hand Knit posted:put up a picket fence. Only time in my life I did that was for a club speed championship in the 80s. I went 11-0-0. 
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Jul 19, 2014 22:28
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So here, as promised, is the write-up of the two nine-game tournaments I just played. To make things a little more navigable, I will put the two tournaments in separate posts. A couple games will be particularly light on commentary because my opponents were simply bad – this is especially true of the second tournament where the majority of the 120 person field was below ~1500. I faced one GM, in round 2 of tournament 2. I think that the three best games I played are all in tournament two, rounds 6, 7, and 9. I found my form late, so I think that my entire first tournament is underwhelming, though I put together a couple of okay games late (rounds 7 and 9). Let’s begin. The first tournament was the Commonwealth Championship in Glasgow. It was a bit of a second-choice tournament for me. While I had wanted to visit Glasgow anyways – I have quite a few friends here – my original preference had been to shape my vacation around the Vaujany chess tournament in the French Alps. However, unfortunately, that was too logistically difficult. And, besides, in Glasgow I could couchsurf which drastically cut down the costs of travelling. There were two sets of tournaments running in Glasgow, the overall Commonwealth Championship and a handful of age-bracketed tournaments. The U18 was rolled into the Open, which ran every day in the afternoon. The U10, U12, U14, and U16 tournaments ran in the morning. Aravindh Chithambaram played in both the age-bracket and open tournaments, and won them both. Keep an eye on this kid, he’s legit – future inner circle player. Despite the supposed scope of the tournament, there were only really two delegations. India, of course, sent a proper team and they made up the majority of the top-seeded players. South Africa sent a team of mostly teenagers who all wore official team kits: national-team branded track suits and knapsacks. Otherwise, the tournament was mostly comprised of locals and semi-locals. This obviously wasn’t a high priority tournament to Glasgow and it showed – the playing hall was a basement gymnasium in a city college. Anyways, on to the games. My round 1 opponent was not very good, and I dispatched him quickly (even though I got a bit greedy). [Round "1"] [ECO "B01"] [WhiteElo "2027"] [BlackElo “UNR”] 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Qa5 5.d4 Bf5 6.Bc4 e6 7.O-O Nbd7 8.Bf4 c6 9.Qe1?! Shamelessly pursuing d5 and other garbage tactics for the quick win. Not actually a good move. 9…Bb4 10.Bd2 O-O 11.a3 Be7 12.Nd5 Qd8 13.Nxe7+ Qxe7 14.Rc1 Rfe8 15.Bg5 h6 16.Bh4 g5 This is why you don’t have to try too hard against low-level players. They will freely introduce weaknesses into their own position. 17.Bg3 Nd5 18.Qd2 f6 19.Bb3 h5 20.c4 N5b6 21.h4 g4 22.Ne1 Kg7 23.Nc2 Rad8 24.Rfe1 Nc5!?  I was briefly stunned, since I didn’t think I would have to look for this sort of move against a player of his caliber. However, it doesn’t actually work, and I soon turn positional advantage into material advantage. 25.Ne3 Bg6 26.Bc2 Qf7 27.b4 Ne4? 28.Bxe4 Bxe4 29.Nxg4 hxg4 30.Rxe4 Qg6 31.Qf4 f5 White is plainly winning but a little technique is still required. Both the d and c pawns are a little fragile, and there’s no clear way into the black camp. While it can be tempting to break through the centre – black’s king is quite bad – that would activate his rooks. Rather, white should push on the queenside. This creates space for the white rooks without giving black counterplay, and white’s queen can still dominate the centre. 32.Ree1 Rd7 33.Qe5+ Kf7 34.a4 Rde7 35.a5 Nd7 36.Qe3 Nf8 37.a6 Rd7 38.axb7 Rxb7 39.Ra1 Nd7 40.Ra6 Rc8 41.d5 cxd5 42.Rxe6 Qg8 43.Re7+ 1-0 I remembered my second-round opponent from when he was not quite as good in Australia. Looking at this games was somewhat disheartening for me. He clearly liked Maroczy Bind set ups which, while not especially good, are positions that I do not enjoy. My biggest trouble with them is where to put black’s rooks. This game is interesting because we both evaluated black’s chances as being much better than the computer does. Of course, that’s all a little nil as I ended up simply hanging my king. The first of many blunders. [Round "2"] [ECO "B42"] [WhiteElo "2375"] [BlackElo "2027"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Bd3 Bc5 6.Nb3 Be7 7.c4 d6 8.Nc3 Nf6 9.O-O O-O 10.f4 Nbd7 11.Qf3 Qc7 12.Bd2 I think that Bd2 is supposed to be suboptimal. It’s a little passive, and doesn’t point where it’s best (black’s b6 square). There is upside to it, though (keeps the e-file open for the rook), and it’s mostly just a sideline. 12…b6 13.Rae1 Bb7 14.Qh3 g6? Reacting to a non-threat. Of course it looks like white is threatening some version of 15.e5 dxe5 16.fxe5 Nxe5 17.Rxf6 but if black simply puts a rook on d8, then black has Rxd3 in all lines simply winning. Such play would have the advantage of keeping black’s kingside pawns intact. 15.g4 Rae8 16.Re3  White is slowly increasing the pressure, so black has to do something or I’m just waiting for white to win. My first instinct is to play Nc5 and swamp minors, but I was advised that black wants to avoid trading pieces in this opening. Furthermore, it’s not clear how black continues on from there. Incidentally, this is the computer recommended line. Instead, I chose something more risky and active. It may not be ultimately sound, but I think it gives decent fighting chances. 16…d5 17.cxd5 exd5 18.e5 d4 19.exf6 dxe3 20.fxe7 Rxe7 21.Bxe3 Rfe8 22.Bd4 Qc6 The dust has settled and white has two full minors for the rook, but black controls the a8-h1 diagonal and is threatening Re3. I thought that this position was decent for black, but the computer comes out strongly in favour of white. 23.Kf2 Nc5 24.Bc2  Here we reach a turning point. Black has the option to undertake a full on attack, but has to sacrifice the exchange leaving me simply down a piece. I looked at this line for ages, but ended up missing the critical continuation because I missed a diagonal check. Instead, I took a line that I thought gave me a good endgame, with two pawns for the R-BN imbalance (which is usually enough). 24…Na4? 24…Nxb3 25.Bxb3 Qd6 26.Be5 Rxe5! 27.fxe5 Rxe5 with Black’s critical idea here being 28…Qc5+ followed by 29…Re3. HIARCS gives white’s best line as something that reduces into what I think is a losing endgame: 28.Ne2 Qc5+ 29.Ke1 Re3 30.Qxe3 (only?) Qxe3 31.Rxf7 Qxb3 31.axb3 Kxf7 25.Bd1 Nxb2 26.Bf3 Nd3+ 27.Kg1 Nxf4 28.Qh6 1-0 “Waaaah” – Wario On the pair down I got an 1800 who appeared to play the French. I was happy for this because I’d been studying the French Advance and was looking for an opportunity to try it. Just my luck, he’d been studying it for the past year or so and had just brought up some grandmaster sideline prep that doesn’t appear in the chessbase database. Basically bad luck all around for me. [Round "3"] [ECO "C02"] [WhiteElo "2027"] [BlackElo "1833"] 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 Nge7 7.Na3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nf5 9.Nc2 Qb6 10.h4 Na5!? A move that can apparently be attributed to Simon Williams. What black is trying to do is quite straightforward – trade lightsquared bishops and threaten Nc4 provoking b3 and thus creating weaknesses on white’s dark squares. I figured that the best way to combat this was to play b3=>Ba3 and trade dark-square bishops, creating a weakness on d6. However, in doing all this, I left out one critically important move. 11.g4 Ne7 12.O-O? Bb5 13.b3? h5 The move I had neglected to stop. On move 12, white should immediately play h5 myself, preventing black from establishing a knight on f5. White’s not worse, but winning will now be between hard as to untangle I have to walk my king to h3 to free my knight from f3. While I knew this plan, I couldn’t find time to undertake it. 14.g5 g6 15.Ba3 Bxe2 16.Qxe2 Nf5 17.Bxf8 Kxf8 18.Qd2 Nc6  Well, now what? The character of the game appears to be set, with only the a, b, and c files being contested while white holds weaknesses on d4 and h4. I figure that the right thing to do here is to push quickly, since his king still needs a couple of moves to fix itself. 19.b4 Kg7 20.a4 Rhc8 21.Rfc1 a6 22.Rab1 Na7 And here I blundered. White is in a bit of a bind anyhow. The natural looking move – Ne3 to challenge the knight on f5 – fails quite badly: 23.Ne3 Nxe3 24.fxe3 (Qxe3? Rxc1+ 25.Qxc1 Rc8 -/+) Nc6 and black will refill the knight on f5 via e7. I wanted to push on b5 to secure space, but that plan had to be rejected because of 24…Rc4. The thing is, I thought for so long that I forgot about Rc4 and then played the line anyways. 23.b5 axb5 24.axb5 Rc4 White is now in a lot of trouble. I go for a tactical defence, hoping that that’s not his strong point. It almost worked, but his technique at the end was very good. 25.Rd1 Nxb5 26.Ne3 Nfxd4 27.Nxc4 Nxf3+ 28.Kg2 Nxh4+ Better still is dxc4, where the white king has to walk perilously towards the centre of the board to capture the black knight. 29.Kh3 dxc4 30.Kxh4 c3 31.Qf4 c2 32.Qf6+ Kg8 33.Rd7 Rf8 34.Ra1 Na3 Fancy, although simply redirecting the knight to d5 via c7 works better. 35.Qf4 Qb2 I had originally planned to play Qc1 here, but once it was on the board I realized that white can’t survive trading queens – I would have to leave the d-file to stop the b-pawn, at which point black has Rd8=>d1. 36.Rc1 b5 37.Rc7 Nc4 38.Kh3 Qc3+ 39.f3 Qd3 White can hold off the passer, but I need to place my pieces so passively to do so that my king becomes vulnerable. 40.Kg3 Qe2 41.Kh4 Ne3 42.Kh3 Qg2+ 0-1 Well that sucked. At least I now get a couple of easy pair-downs to recover, right? My first pair-down did seem like truly easy pickings – he was a junior who played everything tactics but his opening repertoire seemed to be very slow and positionally oriented. The game plan was simple – develop pieces, swap queens, watch him blow up. [Round "4"] [ECO "E11"] [WhiteElo "1766"] [BlackElo "2027"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Qe7 A variation on what I normally play. After round 9 in Reykjavik I wanted to be careful around bad kids who might tunnel-vision on opening prep. 5.Qa4 a5 6.Bxb4 Qxb4+ 7.Qxb4 axb4  It’s nice to know this early exactly how the game will play out: keep the centre tame but not closed, and load up the rooks on the a-file. It’s wonderfully simple. 8.Nbd2 d5 9.g4? The beauty of a tactical player in a slow position. With no queen or obvious targets he defaults to the senseless pawn storm… except my king is still in the middle. So, in effect, he makes his pawn structure much worse and creates a new target, all while not even forcing me to react. Two possible plans for him would be to exchange on d5 to create an a-symmetrical central structure and then try to break with e4, or putting his knight on e5 to try and screw with my development/structure (and if he can take on c6 himself, I’m in big trouble). Nc6 10.g5 Ne4 11.e3 Nd6 12.h4 More wasted moves for the pawn storm into nothingness. I continue to develop. 12…Bd7 13.Bd3 Ke7 14.Ke2 Ra7 15.h5 Na5 HIARCS actually doesn’t like this move but I stand by it – I’m ready to play Rha8 so I get rid of his threat on h7. 16.Ne5 Naxc4 17.Ndxc4 Nxc4 18.Nxc4 dxc4 19.Bxc4 Bc6 20.Rh4 Ra5 Inevitably, black targets white’s awful g-pawn. 21.Rg4 Bd5 The bishop holds a2, and must be eliminated. 22.Bxd5 exd5 23.a4 bxa3 24.bxa3 Rha8 25.g6 hxg6 26.hxg6 f5 The poetic end of his pawn storm. He pushes his g-pawn into nothingness where it will eventually be taken for free by the black king. 27.Rg5 Kf6 28.f4 Rxa3 29.Rb1 R8a7 30.Rgg1 Ra2+ 31.Kf3 Rh2 A tempo move, drawing the white king away from the centre. 32.Kg3 Rc2 Black wants to secure c6 as the base of the pawn chain, supporting the push of the passed b-pawn. 33.Rb3 c6 34.Rb6 Rc3 35.Kf3 Raa3 36.Rxb7 Rxe3+ 37.Kf2 Re7 38.Rb6 Rc3 39.Rg3 Rc2+ I think the pawn endgame is winning, but this is simpler. 40.Kf1 Ra7 41.Re3 Ra1+ 42.Re1 Rxe1+ 43.Kxe1 Kxg6 44.Rb3 Rc4 45.Rb6 Kh5 46.Ke2 Rxd4 47.Rxc6 Rxf4 48.Ke3 g5 0-1 Very appropriately, white resigns on the first push of black’s g-pawn. Round 5 was another pair down, my punishment for losing down in round 3. This opponent, like the one in round 3, also played the French. This time, however, I decided to stick to positions with a pawn on e4. Those suit me better. [Round "5"] [ECO "C00"] [WhiteElo "2027"] [BlackElo "1800"] 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 I have decided to put away Lawrence Day’s 5.Na3 Pterodactyl. 5…Bg7 6.c3 Nge7 7.O-O O-O 8.Rd1 e5 9.Na3 d6 10.Nc2 Qc7 He simply gives me the centre without a fight. 11.d4 exd4 12.cxd4 Bg4 13.Be3 b6 14.h3 Bxf3 15.Bxf3 Rad8 16.Rac1 d5?!  A desperation try, I guess. White’s position seemed to be building towards inevitability, so black tries something. This something, however, seems to just give white a free pawn. Lucky for him, though, my form wasn’t so good. 17.dxc5 Bxb2 18.cxb6 axb6 19.Rb1 dxe4 20.Rxd8? Thinking myself out of a pawn. White should simply recapture with the bishop and then, after black plays Qe5, play Bxb6 with the queen now holding the light-squared bishop. 20…Rxd8 21.Bxe4 Nd4 The move I missed. 22.Nxd4 Bxd4 23.Bg5??  I want to die. Luckily he didn’t see me before I composed myself, and I must have made a good show of calculating something deeply because… Qc5?? 24.Rb5 Qd6 Not 24…Bxf2+?? 25.Kg2 +- 25.Bg2 Rd7 26.Bf4 Qf6 Black’s pieces get contorted, although it’s not clear how white is going to win this. I decide to take advantage of his kingside pawn structure by adding a pawn of my own to the attack. 27.h4 Kg7 28.h5 Nf5 29.Re5 Here, the computer finds the nice shot 29.g4 Nd6 30.Bh6+! which is a very elaborate way of forcing black’s king to the back rank. 29…Re7 30.h6+ Kf8 31.Rxe7 Qxe7 32.Qd2 Qc5 33.g4 Ne7 34.Be3 1-0 This time, I don’t miss my chance. So, after a few rounds of wandering in the wilderness of down-pairings, I’ve finally made my way up again. This time I am paired against a young member of Team India. She appears to mostly play the Colle in her down-pairings, although I notice that some Nimzo sidelines sometimes come up. I forgot to prepare for the latter, which proved to be somewhat unfortunate. As a side note, this was on sectarian march day in Glasgow. We were told that the only ones going by the tournament hall ought to be done in the morning, but also that things don’t always go as planned. [Round "6"] [ECO "E22"] [WhiteElo "2272"] [BlackElo "2027"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qb3 c5 5.dxc5 Bxc5 Main line here is Nc6, but not having prepared I try to steer things back to more familiar territory. 6.Nf3 O-O 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Ne4 Qe7 10.Nxc5 Qxc5 11.e3 b6 I have an idea of the position I want – more or less a hedgehog – so I push ahead with it. This leads me to push aside the strong Qa5+. This would have forced Nd2 which both ties up white in the centre and leaves the a8-h1 diagonal very vulnerable. 12.Be2 Bb7 13.O-O Nc6 14.Rfd1 Rfd8 15.Rac1 Rac8 16.Qa4 d6 17.h3  A waiting move, played under duress. While she was thinking, the marches returned. The reactions throughout the tournament hall were varied. The top board simply adjourned their game without checking with an arbiter. Myself and my second-round opponent, one board over, were laughing pretty hard. My opponent was clearly struggling with the chaos. Tania Sachdev, standing across the room, looked absolutely distraught. Eventually the arbiters made their way through the hall and stopped the clocks. When the game restarted, I reacted with a waiting move myself. My position is quite solid, and I was happy to repeat. The one thing I had to be careful is that each repetition gives her an extra move, and a3-b4 is inevitable if I don’t do something. 17…Qa5 18.Qb3 Qc5 19.a3 Ne7 20.Qa4 Qc6 21.Qb3 Nf5 -/+ The knight has improved its position, and black is now slightly better. I am quite happy with my play to this point, even if it is not quite clear where an attack will come from. Most likely, black will find a way to target c4 and, ideally, infiltrate to c2. This could be achieved with a push from either the d-pawn or the b-pawn. 22.Rc3 Qc7 23.Qc2 Qe7 24.g3 Qf6? I was so excited by the emerging weaknesses in white’s position that I forgot about a thematic tactic. 25.e4 Ne7 26.Rxd6 According to the computer, white doesn’t have a full pawn if black doesn’t take on d6, but I think that’s wrong. A move such as Ng6 (HIARCS line) leaves black thoroughly without counterplay, and white will consolidate and win at her convenience. Trading is riskier, but I believe that it grants good chances for either a blockade or recapturing the pawn. 26…Rxd6 27.e5 Qf5 28.exd6 Qxc2 29.Rxc2 Nf5 30.Rd2 Rd8 31.d7 f6  Black makes a stand. The idea is to prevent white from adding defenders to the pawn, then placing the bishop on c6 and the king on e7. 32.b4 e5?? Coincidentally, I’m currently reading a Jonathan Rowson book on the sorts of cognitive errors we make, like thinking ourselves out of our plans. If black simply played Bc6 here, I would’ve recaptured the pawn and likely drawn the game. However, I outsmarted myself, and convinced myself that if I played e5 first I could trade on f3, play Nd4, and maybe even win. I also thought that after Rd6 white had control, but in response to that I can then play e5 and Rxd7. 33.c5 bxc5 34.bxc5 Bc6 35.Bc4+ Kf8 36.Be6 Bxf3 Ne7 leaves black passive. HIARCS suggests g6 followed by Ng7. While the computer now evaluates white as fully winning, I think that black still has blockading chances. 37.Bxf5 Ke7 38.Rd6 g6 39.Be6 Rb8 40.Kh2 h5? The decisive mistake, missing a positional tactics. Visions of an ‘active defence’ with mating threats distracted me. I have to keep the rook to the kingside/behind the advanced pawn. Otherwise… 41.Bd5 e4 42.Bb7! Rf8 43.Bc8 g5 44.Re6+ Kd8 45.c6 e3 46.c7+ Kxc7 47.Re8 Rxe8 48.dxe8=Q exf2 49.Ba6 1-0 A disappointment, but still largely cause for optimism after my play so far. After this, barring a case of food poisoning in round 8 (probably bad pastrami) my play picked up significantly. This is the point where I started to find my form. While I missed a few things in round 7, I did properly roll over an opponent who was not particularly good. The main thing that sticks in my mind about him is his awful, awful facial hair. Like maybe three dozen short, bright-red pube hairs randomly around his face. Luckily, it wasn’t too distracting. [Round "7"] [ECO "B84"] [WhiteElo "2027"] [BlackElo "1846"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.a4 I’m not very comfortable with my play against 6…e6 generally. I went with the a4 plan because it can move towards the positional and away from tactical bullshit where I might accidentally lose. Kindly, he didn’t stop me from pushing a5. 7…Be7 8.a5 O-O 9.Be3 Nc6 10.Nb3 Nd7 11.O-O b6 12.axb6 Nxb6 13.f4 Bb7 14.Rf3 This is a move that I’m not entirely sure about. Most of my pieces are directed towards the queenside, and this rook is clearly headed towards the kingside. However, most of his pieces are also on the queenside, so his king is a little vulnerable. My thinking is that with my bishops in the middle, I can attack both wings effectively. He doesn’t seem to have time to bring his knights back to the kingside, but then he also doesn’t seem to have much of an attack on the queenside. I expect his weak a-pawn to ultimately be decisive. 14…Bf6 15.Rh3 h6 16.Bd3 e5 17.f5 I spent a while here, making sure it worked. The big concern with such a push is always getting undermined in the centre with d5. However, in this case, since I’ve exchanged the b-pawn, such a push would run into Nc5. Without that counterpush being an option, I definitely want to open my dark-squared bishop at h6 and also fix his g7-pawn as a permanent target. His dark-square bishop is also quite ugly now, but any attempt to trade it off leaves him open to a future f6-push. I didn’t expect him to respond with Bg5, and I don’t know if it’s especially challenging, but then again I’m not sure what else he has. 17…Bg5 18.Bxg5 Qxg5 19.Rg3 Qf6 From here, my goal is to put something on the a2-g8 diagonal and then play Rg6 and f6. While this is broadly a good plan, focusing on it led me to miss the right continuation and get in a bit of trouble. 20.Qd2 Ne7 21.Na5 Bc8 22.Bc4 I control the d5 square, stopping him from untangling. 22…Nxc4 23.Nxc4 Rd8  24.Nd5? The problem of tunnel vision. I was so excited to get the ‘plan’ to work that I missed two things. The first is that Rg6 doesn’t actually work because black is going to have Be6! Winning the exchange. The second is that I actually have a far-superior option: Nb6, which allows me to keep a knight on d5 while also pushing black’s queen off f6 to allow white to push the pawn. Since Rg6 doesn’t work, white’s pieces are now a little dubiously placed, and black gets some time to untangle. I actually have to offer black a pawn to fix my knight. 24…Nxd5 25.Qxd5 Rb8 26.Ne3 Kf8 Black’s best play is probably to take the pawn, so he at least has something for his position. With so many pieces on the board, the king move doesn’t really fix anything. 27.b3 Bb7 28.Qd3 d5 Black, in turn, offers a pawn for activity. It’s a neat idea but the problem is that he’s still behind white in play. This means, even if he catches up a bit, he’s still behind in both position and material, which is pretty dire. 29.exd5 e4 30.Qf1 Bxd5 31.Rxa6 Rb6 32.Rxb6 Qxb6 33.Qa1 f6 34.Qa3+ Black’s weird king move comes back to bite him by letting me fix my queen with tempo. 34…Kf7 35.h4 Bb7 36.b4 Qd4 37.Kh2 Rc8 38.c4 Ra8 39.Qb3 Qd3 40.Qb2 Qd6  We reach time control and black’s position is pretty dire. I sort of wish I could pass a tempo here so he could move his queen back to d3 and I could win with 41.Nd5! Qxc4 42.Rxg7+! Kxg7 43.Qxf6+ with mate following. As it stands, I have to proceed with the much more prosaic plan of pushing my pawns. 41.c5 Qd3 42.b5 Ra5 43.c6 Rxb5 44.Qa2+ Qb3 45.Qxb3+ Rxb3 46.cxb7 Rxb7 This endgame is quite simple, although it will take some time to fix the rook and clean up the pawns. 47.Rg4 Re7 48.Kg3 h5 49.Rg6 Re5 50.Kf4 Re8 51.Rg3 Ra8 52.Rh3 Ra4 53.Rh1 g6 54.fxg6+ Kxg6 55.Rc1 Ra8 56.Rc7 Ra2 57.g3 Rf2+ 58.Kxe4 Ra2 59.Nd5 Ra4+ 60.Kf3 Ra3+ 61.Rc3 Ra5 62.Nf4+ Kh6 63.Rd3 Rb5 64.Rd5 Rb3+ 65.Kg2 Rb4 66.Rxh5+ Kg7 67.Kh3 Re4 68.Kg4 Re3 69.Rf5 Re1 70.Nh5+ 1-0 After the mess of the first six rounds, that was the first game I felt good about, and my opponent for the next round looked like nothing special. She was very regular in her openings, played bad openings, and didn’t seem very strong generally. It was particularly unlucky, then, that I scored myself some food poisoning before the round. So, after getting exactly the game I wanted after 7 moves, I got my queen trapped by move 17. [Round "8"] [ECO "D00"] [WhiteElo "2160"] [BlackElo "2027"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.Be2 c6 7.Ne5 Nfd7 The f-knight goes back to open the bishop, and allow f6=>e5. Black scores extraordinarily well in this line. 8.Nd3 e5 However, not thinking quite straight, I played e5 immediately. This move is quite bad, since black is opening the centre while behind in development while also trading off my only active pieces. 9.Nxe5 Nxe5 10.Bxe5 Bxe5 11.dxe5 Qg5 12.Qd4 Re8 A bad attempt at finesse, which I realized over the board. White can simply play 0-0-0, and then meet 13…Qxe5 with 14.Qxe5 Rxe5 15.e4 +- 13.f4 Qxg2 14.O-O-O Bf5 15.h4 f6 16.Rdg1 Qf2 17.Qd2 1-0 Well that sucked. My opponent for round 9 was one of the trainers chaperoning the South African juniors. I mostly prepared for the game by watching clips from Lethal Weapon 2 and joking with my billets that I’d spend the game muttering “big smile” under my breath. She herself was not a particularly nice person, and got strangely defensive when talking about flight lengths from Johannesburg and Toronto. Looking into her play was encouraging – she looked to mostly play a pretty dreadful line of the Philidor, although there was one game in a Berlin where she drew up. I was, generally, not particularly worried. [Round "9"] [ECO "C41"] [WhiteElo "2027"] [BlackElo "1860"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nd7 4.Bc4 c6 I was very excited when it became clear she was playing that crap line of the Philidor. 5.O-O Be7 6.dxe5 dxe5 7.Ng5 Bxg5 8.Qh5 Qe7 9.Bxg5 Ngf6 10.Qe2 I hadn’t actually looked past 8.Qh5 in preparation because the position looked so simply better for white. As a result, I might not have gotten the biggest advantage possible out of the situation. 10…Nb6 11.Nd2 O-O 12.Rfd1 h6 13.Bh4 Be6 14.Bb3 Rad8  So white is better, but we need to sort out why to figure out how to proceed. White’s bishop pair is superficial, since black can exchange the light-squared bishops at any point. White has no immediate weaknesses, and only has to accept doubled b-pawns if I want (axb3 would have the additional benefit of restricting black’s b6-knight). Black, on the other hand, seems to have three main weaknesses. The first, which I mentioned already, is that the knight of b6 is poorly placed – it is two moves from entering the game (d7 then c5) and even then won’t be great so long as white has a pawn on c2. The second weakness is the f5 square. It’s currently held by the bishop, but white can exchange it off on e6 (although black could, plausibly, play fxe6 and accept doubled and isolated pawns). This is a long term weakness, although not something that is immediately exploitable since the knight would have to hope from d2 to f1 to e3 to f5. The third weakness, and the exploitable one, is the pin on the f6 knight. Forcing black to double the f-pawns also isolates the h-pawn, which can be picked off by a knight on f5. 15.Qf3 g5 Black falls prey to the idea of trying to do something. Much better is to defend passively with Nbd7. Now black has immediate and severe weaknesses. 16.Bxe6 Qxe6 17.Bg3 Rfe8 18.b3 Prophylaxis, cutting off the b6-knight. h5 19.Qe3 Nh7 20.h4 f5 Needless to say, this sort of aggression is very, very unsound. 21.exf5 Qxf5 22.c4 Again, starting with cutting off black’s queenside knight. 22…e4 23.Nf1!  Quiet, but the winning move in the position. White will swap off one pair of rooks and activate the other, while bringing the knight to g3 to win one or more pawns. Incidentally, black’s weak king is what lets a quiet move like this be so definitely winning. 23…Kf7 24.Rxd8 Rxd8 25.Re1 g4 26.Bc7 Not giving black the chances of 26.Qxe4 Qxe4 27.Rxe4 Rd1. 26…Rd3 27.Qh6 Nf6 28.Ng3 Qg6 29.Qf4 Kg8 30.Nxe4 Nbd7 31.Ng5 Rc3 32.Be5 Rc2 33.Bxf6 I exchange because the queen and knight alone make a very good mating net, so the bishop will only be clearing defenders. I was actually a little surprised by Qxf6, and it took me a little while to find the right continuation. With black using the queen as the main defender, I want to be leading with the rook so: 33…Qxf6 34.Re8+ Kg7 35.Qe3 Qa1+ 36.Kh2 g3+ 37.Qxg3 Nf6 38.Qc7+ Kg6 39.Qf7+ Kf5 40.Qe6+ Kf4 41.Nh3# 1-0 She didn’t seem interested in analyzing the game, and just left quickly. To be fair, my first question would’ve been “you have to know that opening is crap, right?” I finish this tournament on +1, losing all of my up pairings, and achieving no draws. If not for loving up round 3, this would’ve been an overwhelmingly bland tournament. Luckily the form I seemed to be finding carried over to the next tournament.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:54
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The second tournament was quite strange in that it was very bottom heavy. There were a lot of very old and very young players, and this meant that the first few rounds, before the top players separated themselves from the pack, were a little, well, easy. My first round opponent was about 7 years old, and very not good. I played out most of the game using about 30 seconds of my clock. However, because we are talking about Greek islands, the tournament started two hours late. (Which, I was told by a GM who had played there previously, was quite good. One year they started 6 hours late – 1 AM). Also, just to drag things out a bit more, he started sulking at the board towards the end. I played a Scandinavian to create an asymmetrical position and reduce bullshit. I think that’s the only play note this game needs. [Round "1"] [ECO "B01"] [WhiteElo "1005"] [BlackElo "2021"] 1.e4 d5 2.Bb5+ c6 3.Ba4 dxe4 4.Bb3 Nf6 5.Nh3 Bxh3 6.O-O Bg4 7.Qe1 e6 8.Nc3 Qd4 9.h3 Bf5 10.Ne2 Qe5 11.d4 exd3 12.cxd3 Bxd3 13.Be3 Bd6 14.f4 Qxe3+ 15.Qf2 Bc5 16.Qxe3 Bxe3+ 17.Kh1 Bxe2 18.Rfe1 Ne4 19.Kh2 Bxf4+ 20.Kh1 Nd7 21.Rxe2 Ng3+ 22.Kg1 Nxe2+ 23.Kf2 Nd4 24.Rd1 Nxb3 25.axb3 O-O-O 26.Rd4 Ne5 27.Rxf4 Nd3+ 28.Kf3 Nxf4 29.Kxf4 Rd3 30.b4 Rhd8 31.b3 f6 32.g4 R8d4# 0-1 [Round "2"] [ECO "B19"] [WhiteElo "2021"] [BlackElo "2585"] Well that’s quite an introduction to the tournament. The day after I get paired against someone too young to tell his rear end from his elbow, I’m on board 1 against the top-seeded GM. Luckily for me he is an entirely committed Caro Kann player, even though he is quite liberal with just which line he plays. Against the advance, he seemed to play very aggressively and try to mate his opponent in the first 30 moves. On the other hand, against 3.Nc3 his play was much quieter, a lot of games headed towards endgames, and he generally didn’t score as well. Given that I’m generally a 3.Nc3 player that made my decision for me, although I wasn’t going to play the 6.Nh3 line. 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 e6 He opts for a sideline. 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 He spent quite a while on this move. I assume he was just orienting himself, since there’s no way he was debating Qxd4 (10.Nxf7 +/-). 10.Qxd3 Bb4+ 11.Bd2!? Regular is 11.c3 Be7 12.f4. However, I wasn’t much of a fan of white’s pawn structure coming out of this. I figured that this line was generally played by white to create a more unbalanced position with more winning chances, while black’s compensation for spending an extra move on the bishop was that white’s remaining bishop kinda sucked. Therefore, the drawback to Bd2 was probably that it led to stale, not particularly winnable positions. Of course, in this game, that doesn’t really bother me. My plan then is to just sort of ‘hold’ the centre and trade what I can. I would ideally like a symmetrical pawn structure, but that’s unlikely in this position since black will break with c5. However, it does mean that I can safely hold my knight on e5. 11…Bxd2+ 12.Qxd2 Nf6 13.O-O-O O-O 14.Kb1 Nbd7 15.Qe2 Qc7 16.Nh5 Swap one pair of knights, hold e5, and push the kingside pawns. Seems simple enough, right? 16…Nxh5 17.Qxh5 Rad8 18.Qe2 18.g4 comically loses to Nf6. 18.f4 is a possibility, but I wanted to keep the possibility of a symmetrical pawn structure. I did see what he played next (forcing a rook trade on d5 to open the c-file), but I thought it was not a good line since black couldn’t have enough play to outside white’s queenside pawns. As it happens, black has very good play down the c-file. 18…Nxe5 19.dxe5 Rd5 20.Rxd5 cxd5 21.g4 Rc8 22.f4 Qc4  This is the move that I didn’t appreciate at the last juncture. After g4, white loses any rook endgame after exchanging because the pawns are too far. This lets black infiltrate and orient his pieces. While this still has the characteristics of a middlegame, R+Q endgames are often determined by who has the best attack on the opponent king, and he is able to be much faster on the attack since he can threaten queen trades to set up. In light of Qc4, I think that white’s optimal structure is with pawns on g3 and f4, since black’s rook can’t easily get to the base of white’s pawn chain. White can maybe then play something like Rf1=>f3=>a3 and get activity that way, although I suspect that black is still better for the rook endgame. 23.Qf2 Qe4 24.Rf1 Rc4 25.h5 Qd4 26.Qe2 Rb4 Black’s heavies are surprisingly nimble. 27.b3 Qe4 28.Qf2 a5 29.Qg3 I thought at the time that this and g5 were interchangeable moves, since I was only looking at the a4 push. However, black is able to again quickly reorient and target the c2 pawn again. Pushing g5 is necessary to trade on h6 and create a chaotic pawn structure that lets white draw a rook endgame. However, that’s somewhat academic since I consider rook endgames an especial weakness of mine. 29…Qe2 30.Re1 Qd2 31.Rf1 Re4 32.g5 Re2 33.Rc1 Rg2 34.Qh3 hxg5 35.f5!? A desperation shot that doesn’t actually work, but he believed me so I’m suddenly no longer losing. 35…Rh2? 36.fxe6!! Rxh3 If black had played 35…g4 this would be the pawn taking white’s queen, and quickly supporting Rg1. My opponent put too much stock in white getting that ultimately-meaningless f7 pawn – black always holds g6 which stops any perpetuals. 37.e7 Qb4 38.e8=Q+ Qf8 39.Qd7 Rxh5 40.Rf1 Rh6  The suddenly new and undecided endgame. 41.Qxd5? I took towards the centre to keep pressure on f7 (remember what I said about queen and rook endgames being decided by king pressure). However, taking the pawn on b7 is better since I would create two weak black pawns while also keeping pressure on f7. Pushing the pawn to e6, which was the attraction of taking on d5, will never be much of an option. This is borne out over the next few moves, in which I try to fine a good orientation for my pieces. 41…b6 42.Qg2 Qd8 43.Qf3 Qe8 44.Qf5 Rg6 45.Rd1 g4 46.Rd6 Rxd6 47.exd6 g3 48.d7 Qd8 49.Qg4 g2 50.a4?? The evaluation is a bit harsh, but it is technically a move that loses a drawn game. I was trying to create a queenside passer to counter his kingside pressure. However, it’s just all too slow. Furthermore, white has a perpetual on board. We both saw 50.Qxg2 Qxd7 51.Qa8+, but thought that black will escape the checks and then the more-active king will win the game. As it happens there is no escape, and Qa8+ starts a perpetual. 50…Qxd7 51.Qxg2 g6 0-1 I played until he queens because he was playing on increment, but I knew that this position was a simple loss so I didn’t transcribe the rest to computer. He suggested to me after the game that instead of 21.g4 I should’ve instead played Rh3 and contested the c-file. While I agree that g4 was wrong, I don’t know that Rh3 is much better. I suspect he just suggested it because he semi-recently lost a game when De Firmian played a similar idea against him and he hasn’t thought up a good solution yet. The game is a real shame because I was a handful of months from being to claim being undefeated against GMs in the past decade. In such a bottom-heavy tournament, being in the loss bracket after round 2 meant that my next few opponents would be quite weak. In round 3 I faced a man who was around 90 years old, and had dropped some incredible number of points in the past few years. I figured that he was simply too old to play a full game, and would begin hanging pieces after a while. I was right, although I did put myself in a bit of an uncomfortable (although never worse) position first. [Round "3"] [ECO "B22"] [WhiteElo "1445"] [BlackElo "2021"] 1.e4 c5 2.c3 b6 3.d4 Bb7 4.d5 Nf6 5.f3 g6 6.Bf4 d6 7.Bb5+ Nbd7 8.Qd2 a6 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.Bh6 Bxh6 11.Qxh6 O-O-O 12.a4 e6 13.c4 exd5 14.cxd5 Rde8 15.Ne2 Qe7 16.Nbc3 Nd7 17.O-O f5 18.Nf4 fxe4 19.fxe4 Kb8 20.Ne6 Ne5 21.h3 Bc8 22.Qd2 Bxe6 23.dxe6 Qxe6 24.Nd5 Nc4 25.Qh6 Qxe4 26.Rae1 Qxd5 27.Rd1 Qe6 28.Rde1 Ne5 29.Kh1 Qd7 30.b3 Nc6 31.Rd1 Nd4 32.Rd2 Re2 33.Rd3 Rhe8 34.Rf8 Re1+ 35.Kh2 d5 36.Qf4+ Qc7 37.Rxd4 cxd4 0-1 Day 3 featured two games, and after playing a previous tournament I wasn’t in such good shape for the second. I made a bit of an rear end of myself, and my opponent converted well. I tried to console myself that he was a rising junior, but he went on to lose 4 of his last 5 games so I guess I just hosed up. Good on him for figuring out the best line for the first 15 moves, I guess. [Round "4"] [ECO "C00"] [WhiteElo "2021"] [BlackElo "1634"] 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 d5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.d3 b6 5.e5 Nfd7 6.g3 c5 7.Bg2 Nc6 8.O-O Bb7 9.c4 d4 White’s plan in this opening is a strange one that you also see in a classical French advance line. Solidify the e5 pawn, be aggressive with the pawns on the kingside, and eventually look to break through the queenside and get at black’s king. I’ve played quite a few games where I trade both h and g pawns, black has rooks on h and g, and white is nevertheless better because black’s minors are out of play. 10.Re1 Be7 11.h4 Qc7 12.Bf4 O-O-O 13.Na3 a6 14.Nc2 h6 15.g4?  Quite a bad mistake, although I was tired. Pushing h5 is necessary, since this line fails tactically. 15…Bxh4 16.Nxh4 g5 17.Bxg5 hxg5 18.Nf3 Rdg8 19.a3 Ne7 Impressive patience from a 1700 to both identify the weak f4 square and shuffle the knight over there. White’s queenside attack, meanwhile, isn’t very auspicious and the knight on c2 is very poorly placed. 20.b4 Ng6 21.bxc5 bxc5 22.Rab1 Nf4 23.Qd1  White’s position is catastrophic. None of the pieces have any squares, black has gigantic lines at the king, and a refillable knight on f4. However, having placed his knight on f4, black quickly runs out of ideas and just repeats. 23…Qc6 24.Re4 Qc7 25.Re1 Qc6 1/2-1/2 I tried to not fall over myself accepting the repetition. He declined to play 24…Nxd3 25.Qxd3 Qxe4 because he thought that white was winning after Qb3. That’s the sort of evaluation against which I really want to play on, but my position is just so bad I can’t justify it. So, I guess, I escaped with one (or half of one, at any rate). The draw gives me another round in the easy bracket. I appreciate the rest. Blech. My next round opponent wasn’t good, but there were a few interesting points of technique. After last round’s draw, it was a good relief to push aside a 1600 like I feel I should. [Round "5"] [ECO "B22"] [WhiteElo "1657"] [BlackElo "2021"] 1.e4 c5 2.c3 b6 The second time I’ve played this in this tournament, so I’ll note that I don’t think that this is necessarily better than playing a normal Alapin (although it definitely has its virtues) but rather I just want to stay well away from normal Alapin positions where white can make the game very drawish if she wants. 3.d4 Bb7 4.Bd3 e6 5.Ne2 d6 6.O-O Nd7 7.f4 Qc7 8.f5 e5 9.d5 c4 The pawn looks a little loose on c4, but my main concern is to prevent the locking of the pawns. The c5 square for my queen is also quite nice. 10.Bc2 Ngf6 11.Ng3 h5 12.h4 Ng4 13.Qe2 Be7 14.Bg5 Bxg5 15.hxg5 Qc5+ 16.Rf2 HIARCS finds 16.Kh1 h4 17.Nh5!! holding. Nxf2 17.Qxf2 h4 18.Qxc5 Nxc5 19.Nf1 Rh5 Despite being up an exchange, black has to do some work to properly open up the position. White has a few good lines or knight outposts, like the a4-e8 diagonal for the bishop, or the f3 square for a knight (which would effectively close the kingside). The immediate Rh5, then, means that black will always have a lever to open the kingside. 20.Nbd2 Rxg5 21.Nxc4 Ke7 22.b4? Making Rc8 very strong. White’s goal has to be to have no actual weak pawns, so black can’t break without a concession. Nd7 23.a4 Rc8 24.Bd3 Rg4?! I excitedly picked up my rook and prepared to put it on g3, before realizing that white’s other knight still covered that square. 25.Kh2 Nf6 26.Re1 Nxe4 27.Nxe5 dxe5 28.c4 White neglects to recapture the knight. Certainly makes things easier. 28…Nd6 29.Rxe5+ Kf6 30.Re2 Nxc4 31.Bxc4 Rcxc4 32.Ne3 Rge4 33.Nxc4 Rxe2 34.Nd6 Bxd5 0-1 So far, I’ve been staying in a two-person hotel room on my own. I had been told to expect a roommate, but he hadn’t yet shown up. The night after this game, he did. It was pretty bad. That night, I went to be around 2am, and he was out. At 4:30am I was woken up by his awful, awful snoring. Once it was late enough in the morning to do so, I phoned the hotel owner/concierge and asked to be moved (they moved him instead). While this meant that I had the afternoon to nap and catch up on some sleep, I was nevertheless not in the best shape for the upcoming game. [Round "6"] [ECO "C68"] [WhiteElo "2021"] [BlackElo "2135"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.O-O Bg4 This is exciting. Despite how often it shows up online, I’ve never had the chance to play this line OTB. I think it’s just very good for white, and the game bore that out. 6.h3 h5 7.d3 Qf6 8.Nbd2 Ne7 9.Nc4 Bxf3 10.Qxf3 Qxf3 11.gxf3 Ng6 12.Rd1 f6 13.Kf1 a5?! 14.a4 b6? My opponent hasn’t been playing the black side of the Ruy Lopez for very long, and this kind of shows it. He’s trying to the sort of pawn structure that black wants in a Berlin, but an exchange Ruy just plays very differently. My next move, immediate Ke2, seems to be largely my own development in these lines. The idea is quite simple – white has a semi-open g-file and I want the ability to put my rook there. This can be especially valuable when black has already played f6 and has a knight on g6, where black can have difficulty untangling. In this case, black had to commit his king to f7 which is, generally, the wrong side of the board for the king. 15.Ke2 Kf7 16.Be3 c5 17.c3 Be7 18.d4 cxd4 19.cxd4 Rhd8 20.d5! +/-  I fix the position in my favour. Black’s main target is the now-locked c7 pawn, which I can target with both my rooks and my knight after Na3! The one thing holding back my position is that my bishop has to stop black’s knight from coming to f4, and for this reason I was wondering if black might not have Bc5!? Here. 20…Rd7 21.Rac1 Rb8 22.Na3! Bxa3 23.bxa3 Ne7 Since black defended the c7 pawn laterally, white can mean 23…b5 with 24.axb5 Rxb5 25.Rb1 and win through superior rook activity. 24.f4 Nc8? Far, far too slow to bring the knight to d6. White now breaks open the centre and is winning. 25.fxe5 fxe5 26.f4 Kf6 27.fxe5+ Kxe5 28.Kd3 Kf6  This is where my fatigue really starts catching up to me. The game to this point I could play smoothly on general principle and familiarity, but now I have to actually calculate. To keep things easier for myself, instead of trying to win the king, I decide to instead focus on the c7 pawn. 29.Bf4 Rb7 30.Rc6+ Ke7 31.Rdc1 Nd6 32.Bxd6+? I’d been planning for this for a while, but it’s just not the right plan. I thought I could just play Rb1, win the pawn on b6, and be better, but my remaining rook becomes poorly placed and I face counterplay on the kingside. 32…cxd6 33.Rb1 g5 34.Kd4 g4 35.hxg4 hxg4 36.e5 g3 37.Rg1 dxe5+ 38.Kxe5 b5 39.Rxg3 bxa4  White again has multiple very simply lines, and I was looking at the right ideas, but in the haze of fatigue I simply didn’t see 40…Kf8. The fastest win is 40.Rc8 Kf7 41.Rcf8. 40.Re6+ Kf8 41.Rg4 Rb5 42.Rf6+ Ke7 43.Rg7+ Kd8 44.Rxd7+ Kxd7 45.Rf7+ Ke8 46.Rf4 Kd7 47.Rxa4 Rc5 48.Rh4 Rc3 49.Rh7+? The final mistake, more or less forgetting that black can just take the a-pawn. Kc8 50.Kd6 Rxa3 51.Rh8+ Kb7 52.Kd7 Rg3 53.d6 Rg7+ 1/2-1/2 A really disappointing game, since for the first part I played just about as well as I could. The next day wasn’t much better, since it was a morning round (instead of the usual 7PM game) to get around a local festival. I decided that I would work to keep things simple and, accordingly, play a Philidor instead of a Sicilian. [Round "7"] [ECO "B00"] [WhiteElo "2266"] [BlackElo "2021"] 1.e4 d6 2.g3 Inviting a transposition into a closed Sicilian, which I knew he preferred, but I know and like this system within the Philidor. 2…Nf6 3.Bg2 e5 4.d3 Be7 5.h3 c6 6.Nf3 h6 7.O-O Be6 8.c3 Nbd7 9.Qe2 Qc7 10.d4 b5 I think that black is better already. All my minors are developed and I have a good grasp of the queenside. All that remains now is to organize the d5 breakthrough. 11.Rd1 Nb6 12.Nh4 O-O 13.Nd2 Rfe8 14.b3 d5 Note that 14.b3 allows this, since 15.dxe5 Qxe5 16.f4 hangs the c3 pawn. 15.Nf5 Bxf5 16.exf5 Bd6 17.Qd3 e4 -/+ While white’s knight will eventually go to e3, the queen has to sit there for now. This gives black a few moves to organize an attack. The question is… where to attack? White has a huge hole on h2 (black will tickle the f5 pawn to force g4), but the knight on f1 seems to hold that on its own. The c3 square (but not the pawn) seems a little weak. I eventually decide that the best strategy is to open the c-file and try to use that as an entry point into the black position. The d4-pawn becomes weak in this line, so many I can win that. I am still not certain if this is the right idea. 18.Qe3 c5 19.Nf1 cxd4 20.cxd4 Qd7 21.g4 Rac8 22.Bd2 Rc6 23.Qe2 a6 24.Rdc1 Rec8 25.Rxc6 Rxc6 26.Qe1 Ba3 27.Bb4 Bxb4 28.Qxb4 Qc7 29.Ne3 So the last 10 moves have gone exactly as expected. Black dominates the c-file, and white has a knight on e3. The thing is, I’m not sure that I’m better for it. There still isn’t a clear avenue of attack. In these sorts of situations, the thing to look for is identifying your worst piece and figuring out how to improve it. In this case, the knight on b6 isn’t doing so much, and I look to move it to d6 so I can push my queenside pawns. 29…Nc8 30.Bf1 Rc3 31.Kg2 Nd6 32.Nc4!?  32….dxc4? It was a good idea from my opponent, but a mistake to believe him. And, even if I do ‘believe’ his tactic, dxc4 is still a mistake since it leaves a pawn on the board. The problem with my opponent’s tactic is that he can’t actually take on d6 if black finds Rc2!!. This is because black has the crushing threat of Qc3, where white can no longer control the f3 square. The critical line is 32…Rc2 33.Qxd6 (33.Nxd6 a5 34.Qxb5 Qxd6 XQf4 +-) Rxc4 34.Qxa6 Rc2 X Qc3 +-. Even if you give white the exchange, black can maintain an advantage with 32…Rxc4 33.bxc4 dxc4. Within the game line, the tempo black gets for Nd5 does not offset spotting white an extra pawn. 33.Qxc3 Nd5 34.Qg3 c3 35.Rc1 Qc6 36.Kh2 f6 The computer doesn’t like this move, but I think the idea is sound. White’s one point of infiltration is bringing the queen to e5. By cutting that off, black’s passed c-pawn becomes much better. Note that black can’t play b4 to support the c3 pawn since that would give white Bc4, which is the consequence of playing dxc4 instead of Rxc4. 37.Bg2 b4 Of course, if white wants to abandon that diagonal, that’s okay too. 38.f3 Ne3 39.fxe4 Nxg2 40.Qxg2 Nxe4 41.Kh1?? Ng3+?? Maybe a consequence of still being tired, but I was so excited to see the draw that I missed the win. 41…Nf2+ 42.Kg1 Qxg2+ 43.Kxg2 Nd3 44.Rc2 Ne1+ -+ 42.Kg1 Qxg2+ 43.Kxg2 Ne2 44.Rc2 Nxd4 45.Rc1 Ne2 1/2-1/2 After feeling like I had punted the last two games due to fatigue, and generally being aware of the fact that I’d just played 16 games in 18 days, I decided I would try to draw my next game quickly. My opponent happily obliged. [Round "8"] [ECO "B00"] [WhiteElo "2021"] [BlackElo "2183"] 1.e4 g6 2.Nf3 Bg7 3.d3 c5 4.g3 Nc6 5.c3 d5 6.Nbd2 e5 7.Bg2 Nge7 8.O-O O-O 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nc4 Nc7 11.Re1 f6 12.Be3 Ne6 13.Qb3 1/2-1/2 I’m confident that I’m better, but I’d rather catch up on my sleep. By the last round, I was ready for a bit of a break. I took a brief look at what he played, but there weren’t a whole lot of games and there were a lot of 1.d4 sidelines (Torre attacks, 2.Nc3 garbage). I figured I’d just throw some moves together and see what happened. Besides, it’s not like he’s going to be in much better shape than I will be, right? As it happens, he decided to experiment with 1.c4. This gave me a chance to play a line I haven’t had the change to work with yet. [Round "9"] [ECO "A20"] [WhiteElo "2097"] [BlackElo "2021"] 1.c4 e5 2.g3 d6 3.Bg2 f5 This is a very simple line. I bring my queen to h5, I push f4, and I mate him. After my last-round tournament loss in June I’m very conscious of wanting to push the initiative, even if it isn’t necessarily sound. After all, to oversimplify, loving up on the attack simply loses you the attack while loving up on the defence loses you the game. 4.b3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.d3 Qe8 8.Nc3 c6 9.e3 Na6 10.Ne1 Nc5 11.b4 Ne6 12.Ne2 Qh5 -/+ White’s indecision has give black a big lead in development. 13.Nc2 Ng5 14.f3 Nh3+ 15.Kh1 Be6 16.Ng1 Nxg1 17.Kxg1  This is a bit of a difficult position for me. I know I’m better – both white’s pieces and pawn structure are bad – but there doesn’t seem to be any immediate attack. I settle for expanding through the centre. 17…d5 18.c5 Qh6 The idea being that white can no longer push f4 with an attack on the queen. 19.f4 Nd7 20.fxe5 Nxe5 21.e4 Bg5 22.Bxg5 Qxg5 23.exd5 Bxd5 24.Bxd5+ cxd5 This is more or less what I’d been hoping for out of playing in the centre. A lot has cleared, but that includes all of his activity and now he can’t stop the f4-push. 25.Rf4 Ng6 26.Rf2 f4 27.Qd2 Qg4 28.Raf1? This is, in effect, a concession and I was very happy to see it. The stubborn defence is Qd1, continuing to question black’s queen. 28…fxg3 29.Rxf8+ Rxf8 30.Rxf8+ Kxf8 31.hxg3 Qxg3+ 32.Kf1 Nf4 33.Ne1 g5  My idea is that my queen-knight mating net prevents him from doing anything, so I will slowly improve my pawns and king. Also, somewhat importantly, I don’t want to reduce to a knight endgame since my pawns and king aren’t yet very well placed. 34.b5 d4 A necessary precaution. If he got in d4 himself, the pawn endgame would actually be drawn since I wouldn’t be able to clean up the queenside pawns with my king. This also keeps the e3 square covered if my queen wants to manoeuver. 35.c6 Qh3+ 36.Kg1 Qg4+ The queen manoeuver I had in mind. Now, if his queen ever leaves the 2nd rank, black has Qe2+. 37.Kf1 bxc6 38.bxc6 Ke8 39.Qb2 Qh3+ 40.Kg1 Qe3+ 41.Kf1 Qxe1+ 0-1 That is, unbelievably, my first win against an opponent with a FIDE rating over 2000 this year. I was starting to get really bothered that I hadn't beaten anyone over 2000, so it's good to have that off my back. That win was good enough to launch me into a tie for 8th which, with the Hort prize distribution system, netted me a rocking 5 Euros. As always, ask all questions and I'll do the best I can to answer them.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:12
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Why I Quit Playing Chess for an Entire Year -or- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to get Bombed ~a tragedy in five rounds~ by dee eight I came home from work on a Thursday and was greeted by my wife with the message, "Some guy from India called and wants to buy your van." What? What the? Who? Why? Who the hell would want to buy my lovely van and way would they call all the way from Calcutta? I called the number and it was Miroslaw Czerchensky, my favorite Polish Microbiologist and fellow chess club member, who wanted to know if I was driving to the last tournament of the season and could he get a ride. Miroslaw's english was adequate but peppered with odd idiom and mispronunciations. Of course, no problem, Mirec! (Mirec is like Mike to Michael) I had been putting a lot of energy and ego and will and life into my game for the last year or so and I was at my peak. I had cracked 1900 recently and this tourney was my last chance to qualify for the state closed championship. I had enough grand prix points to be within striking distance. If I finished in the top 5, I'd garner enough points to get a seed. I'd been doing a lot of prep work, going over plenty of games of the top dogs, polishing up my favorite weapons for either side of the board, and I was confident that I could do it. Friday afternoon I loaded my gear and set off. A drive down to the valley to collect Mirec, a stop at the grocery store for beer and traveling snacks, and away we went over the Skalkaho Pass on our way to Ennis, MT. It was a lovely drive on a smooth gravel road and just a little hop over the Sapphire Mountains to paved roads and a faster route. As we drove along, we chatted about this and that and I learned that he'd gotten his degree at the University of Heidelberg and I told him that I liked fast motorcycles and guns. He was frightened a little bit that people were allowed to own guns in America. At one point he shouted "LUKE, A HOUK! A HOUK!" I wondered wtf and then saw he was pointing at a hawk sitting on a stump. I thought to myself, "I didn't know Donald Duck taught English 101 in Heidelberg." We arrived in Ennis with plenty of time to spare. Mirec checked into a cheap motel, I set up my camp in the van, then I strolled downtown (three blocks long, 3 bars, and not much else) and called home to say I'd arrived safely. Every single one of the bars had nothing on tap. Seriously. If you wanted a beer, getchersef a bottle of bud lite. The absolute best available was Michelob. I felt a sense of dread descending. Saturday morning, check in with the TD, 1st round pairing is a breeze, and I'm done with a point and a couple hours left over for a leisurely lunch and the knowledge that I'm most likely downpaired again. I was confident enough to have a bowl for dessert. I shouldn't have. I got nicked for a draw by a 1600 player and drat now I need to score 2 1/2 in the next three to make the cut. I have faith, though. I've got a sort of swiss gambit going now and I won't be in with the sharks until round 4. Round 3 went well. I won with an old favorite, the Vienna Gambit. My opponent had never seen it before and took the pawn. "I figured the best way to refute a gambit is to accept it" he said. Not this one, man. 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf? 4. e5 move your flea-bitten nag, sucka! (mistake fixed here) 5. Nf3 and now I'm happy Round 4 was nasty. I had to play black against Paul M, a high ranked expert and one of the most violent tiger types I've ever faced. It was a given that he would play e4 and it would be suicidal to meet it with anything except MacLeod's defense. Paul already had a lock on a seed for the championship so I couldn't see him really pressing for a win. I ground out a defensive draw in 30ish moves and was happy to get it. Round 5 turned weird. The pairings left me with black again vs an 1800 player. I thought about protesting until I checked the wall chart and looked over the TD's shoulder at the mess he was dealing with and saw that it was, sadly, the only logical way to make the last round work. Oh well, if you can't face adversity with aplomb, you shouldn't play chess. My opponent started with c4 and I played a Symmetrical English and watched for chances to open a file and get some rook action going. It didn't happen. I had to have the full point so I tried to force it and ended up punting a couple pawns and going into a lost endgame. When it was more than obvious, I picked up my king and broke it in half and muttered 'I resign'. I have never felt so disappointed in myself as I did at that moment. I had muffed my shot at glory, I had behaved like a poor sport, I had broken something that meant a lot to me. I had done something so wrong while doing something I loved so much that I had to step back and take a long hard look at myself and answer a very difficut question. Why do you play chess? ~~~~~~~~~~~~ As we prepared to head home, Mirec pointed out a shortcut on the map. Huh, I never noticed that road there before. It goes directly west and hooks up with the interstate and will cut 40 miles off the return trip. Nice! It was another gravel road, not that great, and after a few miles I wondered if we shouldn't turn back. Then it seemed to smooth out nicely and soon we were cruising along at 35 or 40 and things were, if not wonderful, at least a bit better. Suddenly HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM the van was sailing along about 6 in the air. There was a sudden dip in the road. Well, more like a sudden drop. Cruising on an arrow straight horizontal bit of road does not mean that it is also arrow straight vertically. Mirec shouted "HOLY gently caress A DUCK!" and after "WHAM" clunk clatter we touched down I told him his english was improving. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ So I brooded about that tournament for few weeks, replayed the mistakes in my head, pined for coulda woulda shoulda beens and was pretty miserable about the whole drat thing. I stopped going to the club, let my USCF membership lapse, and just didn't play at all. It was months before I could even think about the game, but it kept coming back in my dreams. I couldn't stop myself from seeing the pieces moving on checkered tableclothes and realizing that it was something I loved and that there was a hole in my life that needed to be filled. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I went to a local brewery where there is a giant set and board on the patio and just played against anybody at all. A few months of beating up fish, hustling beers, giving little lessons here and there made me realize that the answer to the difficult question is because it is fun! It's not about honor and glory and rating points. It's not about trophys and titles. It's all about FUN! I went back to the club, stopped worrying about winning or losing, and I've never been happier with my game. A few decades later and I can do this: 67th Montana Open rd 4 bd 7 White-some guy Black-me 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd 4. Bc4 Be7 5. c3 dxc 6. Qd5 resign and not blow a gasket. In the 5th round, a couple young kids were standing by my board and I heard one whisper 'six moves...wow' and I started giggling. dee eight fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jul 27, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 21:01
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dee eight posted:1. e4 e5 5... Qh4 and puke?
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Jul 27, 2014 02:35
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mfcrocker posted:5... Qh4 and puke? heh That'a what I get for doing it in my head and not digging out old scoresheets. It's 5.Nf3 followed by 6.d4 I can still laugh at my mistakes.
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Jul 27, 2014 12:30
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dee eight posted:heh That'a what I get for doing it in my head and not digging out old scoresheets. Thought that might be the case  I'm glad you seem to be having fun again
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Jul 27, 2014 12:39
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mfcrocker posted:Thought that might be the case I played another vienna gambit somewhere and got a smother mate in 10. I'll try to find that one.
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Jul 27, 2014 15:49
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Hey people. I started playing chess again after a dozen years of not playing a single game. I registered on chess.com as Schmer. I'm bad but I guess that never changes no matter how good you are. I guess we don't have a group on there? There was one goon squad or something like that, but I didn't see any of the names from this thread at least.
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Aug 8, 2014 16:40
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http://www.chess.com/groups/home/sa-mafia-chess It's an old, inactive group. Most people in it haven't been on the site in several years. But a few are. Funny to see how inflated the ratings on chess.com used to be. You can tell from all the 2000+ from 2009 who are 1600-1800s now.
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Aug 8, 2014 23:47
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I played chess between 2007-2009 in high school and started taking it seriously again this year. I thought I would play in the U1800 section in my first tournament (USCF 1628 and Turkish rating of 1697) but apparently I have an ELO of 1825 which meant I was one of the worst players in my category. That meant losing many, many times. I lost six games in a row and drew twice. I learned that I need to work on not one thing, but pretty much every aspect of the game. Sometimes I got a bad position because I did not play "real chess", not anticipating all of my opponent's most pressing responses, and sometimes I spent too much time in the opening trying to work out a good setup of my pieces when I should have had at least have some clue beforehand. I'm hoping I will improve my results as I play more and study. I need to get better and quicker at analyzing critical variations and understanding the common patterns that arise from my openings. Right now every game I play is the first time I've ever played a variation, and my inexperience results in cramped, passive positions with my pieces tripping on each other. An example of this can be seen here: http://chesspo.st/G5yi I thought I would fianchetto the light squared Bishop, so 7.Nbd2 is okay. But that never really happens and black takes advantage with 10.Ng6, threatening Nf4. If I had played Be3 before Nbd2 then I would have a much more comfortable position. That's not the reason I lost the game, of course, but it's easier to blunder in such positions. Here's me losing to an IM today: http://chesspo.st/G5yh I was not expecting 7.e4 since opening up the center before castling just seems like a bad idea for white. I'm okay with playing 7...e5 here, but I'm not sure about 8...Bxf5. I guess I was lucky he didn't want to bother with the complications. 8...Nc6 is just better in hindsight. I got a good position but spent way too much time to get there. Should have played simply with 22...h3, instead of trying the fancy 22...Rf3, especially with only 10 minutes on the clock.
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Aug 19, 2014 14:25
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I know your experience. I took a few years away from the game at one point, and when I returned, one of the main openings I played had taken a serious theoretical beating. Needless to say, a couple games went pretty poorly. Don't feel bad about needing to work on 'everything'. If you're at 1800, that's what you should expect. Hell, everyone below 2200 probably has to work on everything. (Common saying goes you can make it that far on tactics alone, which seems largely believable. Maybe only 2150.) Still, you played very ambitiously against the IM which is good. A lot of players would give in to fear and just lose passively. If you're in a position where you're going to have to catch up a lot from scratch, I would suggest picking a couple of openings with black and getting to know them. This will help you learn both the common structural features and traps, which will help both your position play and tactics. Given how aggressively you played, the King's Indian seems like it would be a good choice. That comes with the benefit of playing very similarly irrespective of white's plans. I wouldn't play the French for moral reasons.
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Aug 20, 2014 03:52
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I played against a young FM rated 2306 ELO today. It was a very exciting game for me. http://chesspo.st/G5yn [Date "2014.08.21"] [Round "5"] [White "Him"] [Black "Me"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A96"] [WhiteElo "2306"] [BlackElo "1825"] 1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. c4 d6 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Qc2 Nxc3 9. bxc3 ...and I'm out of my book. This is the first time I've played the main line Classical Dutch ever since I took it up. I know the basic idea is to: a) Prevent an e4 break (the point of 7...Ne4) b) If you can't prevent e4, prepare an immediate e5 or f4 in return. White has gone as far as taking on doubled pawns to make sure he plays e4, so I need to prep e5. Nd7 blocks the c8 Bishop from protecting f5, so... 8...Nc6 10. d5 Ne5?! Not losing outright, but bad. I refused 10...Na5 because of 11. Qa4 b6 12. dxe6 Bxe6 13. Nd4 with a double attack on the e6 Bishop and the a8 Rook. After the game I looked this up and saw that this is actually good for Black as after 13...Bxc4 14. Bxa8 Qxa8 Black has a very nice control over the light squares for the exchange. 11. Nd4 Nxc4 12. dxe6 c5 13. Nxf5 Bxe6 14. Qe4 Qd7 15. Nxe7+ Qxe7 16. Qxb7 Qxb7 17. Bxb7 Rab8 18. Bg2 Now I've lost a pawn and but thought I could play for a draw here. 18... Rb6 19. Rd1 Rfb8 20. Bf4 Kf8 21. Be4 h6 22. a4 a5 23. Bd3 Ke7 24. Rdc1? I thought this was not accurate over the board, but did not think it was now White that must try hard to draw. 24...g5 25. Be3 Rb2 26. Kf1 Rf8? Missing 26...Bh3+ 27. Kg1 Nxe3 28. fxe3 Bg4 and White is tied up. The rest of the game was a bit depressing since I refused to play Bxe3 with a slight advantage thinking that I need to pick up the light squared Bishop to have a chance of drawing with opposite colored Bishops. And indeed I actually managed to do that, yet still lost. 27. Kg1 Rfb8 28. Kf1 Rf8 29. Kg2 Bd5+ 30. Kg1 Rfb8 31. Kf1 Rf8 32. Kg1 Rfb8 33. g4 Ne5 34. h3 Nxd3 35. exd3 Bf3 36. Kh2 Kf6 37. Kg3 Be2 38. d4 c4 39. h4 R8b3? According to Stockfish 39. Re8! is the only move that saves the game, preventing White from playing up the f-pawn and threatening a future Re4 40. d5 Bd3 41. Bd4+ Kg6 42. Re1 Be2 43. f4 gxh4+ 44. Kxh4 Rd2 45. f5+ Kf7 46. g5 hxg5+ 47. Kxg5 Bf3 48. Re6 Rg2+ 49. Kf4 Bxd5 50. Rxd6 Ba8 51. Rd1 1-0 UnfurledSails fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 13:01
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 15...Qxa3 16.bxa3 Na2+ 17.Nxa2 Bxa3#
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Aug 29, 2014 02:19
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I played two games: Game 1: Black gives up early. 1. e4 c5 2. c4 g5 3. d3 h6 4. h4 e5 5. hxg5 * Game 2: I gently caress myself over because I like trading queens 1. e4 c5 2. c4 Nf6 3. d3 h5 4. Nc3 d6 5. d4 Na6 6. Nf3 Qa5 7. Qa4+ Qxa4 8. Nxa4 Nxe4 9. Bd3 Bf5 10. Be3 Nxf2 11. Bxf5 Nxh1 12. O-O-O e6 13. Bh3 O-O-O 14. Rxh1 cxd4 15. Nxd4 *] After this point, after going back over it, I'm 90% certain he castled incorrectly because I remember the king being on B8 and I recorded Rxc4+ The rest of the game goes like this: [1... Rxc4+ 2. Nc3 Nb4 3. a3 *] I was determined to get a stalemate hopefully, but we didn't have time to finish the game.
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Sep 3, 2014 02:13
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You need to develop your pieces and not make so many early pawn moves in general. To point out a couple in particular,
McNerd fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 04:09
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Hand Knit posted:
That's really sweet. Is there any way to avoid the mate if he doesn't play 16.bxa3 ?
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Sep 7, 2014 16:43
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crimedog posted:That's really sweet. Is there any way to avoid the mate if he doesn't play 16.bxa3 ? Several, but then he's just down a piece. Which is better than being down a king, I guess, but given the position is more or less just about as lost.
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Sep 7, 2014 18:02
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I see, also I edited my post. Before I had "stay in the game" in quotes instead of avoiding the mate. Great move!
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Sep 7, 2014 22:08
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I took a recent interest in chess, and now I'm trying to become competent. So far I've learned basic principles and watched GM games for tactics/strategy, but I haven't studied much else. I've been playing against the computer in a few applications, and I've come to learn that I have trouble thinking a few moves ahead and that I'm lost after the opening. I often overlook attacks the opponent can make, as well. All in all though, I've certainly improved from a few weeks ago. I'd like to post my most recent game, which I rather enjoyed because I felt like I found a good move at each step. It took a fair bit of thinking at points and I wasn't the most confident in a number of moves, but it worked out in the end. This was against the Shredder web app on Easy (I played white). I had to write my own moves, so hopefully that turned out right. My thoughts are below. I'd be happy to hear comments on what I might have missed or if I'm going in the right direction. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nc6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. d3 Bd7 6. Bg5 d5 7. xd5 Bc5 8. O-O O-O 9. xc6 xc6 10. Ba4 Qe7 11. Ne4 Rb8 12. a3 Rxb2 13. Nh4 Nxe4 14. Bxe7 Bxe7 15. xe4 Rd8 16. Bxc6 Bxc6 17. Nf5 Rxd1 18. Rfxd1 Bc5 19. Re8+ Bf8 20. Ne7+ Kh8 21. Rxf8# 1. I've started using this opening after learning that it's the quickest way to castle. Why is quickly castling important to me? I don't know yet. 2. Choosing to attack e5 and clear the way for a king-side castle. 3. I was debating between Bc4 to cover the center or Bb5 to attack the king. I decided to be the aggressor in hopes of disrupting black's opening. 4. Now I was debating on Nc3, d4, or castling. Nc3 won for reasons I can't remember now, maybe to prevent d5 from black and because there didn't seem to be an urgent need for castling. 5. Here I provided extra protection to e5. 6. I wasn't sure if my black-square bishop should be on e3 or g5, but I decided to be the aggressor and went for the pin. 7. Take d5 or castle? I didn't like the imminent pawn fork, so I took. 8. Now seemed a safe time to castle. 9. I liked my odds on this move. ... 11. A protected spot for the knight and limiting the black queen's moves. 12. I noticed a possible rook fork from black. 13. I don't see any immediate threats, so I start eying f5 for my knight to attack the queen. 14. After black's move I realize Nf5 is bad, and Nf3 could result in a pin from black's white-square bishop. 15. I notice the discovered attack I can create. 16. I thought about Nf5, but I liked Bxc6 more based on the simulations I ran in my head. 17. Nf5 seems to have better results than Qxd8. ... 19. I think black should have played Be8, but then again this was the easy setting.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:16
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Some notation errors here, but you'll get better with practice. Pawn captures should be written like 7.exd5, not just 7.xd5. quote:1. I've started using this opening after learning that it's the quickest way to castle. Why is quickly castling important to me? I don't know yet. quote:3. I was debating between Bc4 to cover the center or Bb5 to attack the king. I decided to be the aggressor in hopes of disrupting black's opening. quote:7. Take d5 or castle? I didn't like the imminent pawn fork, so I took. Pawn fork? No danger here that I see. After something like 7. O-O dxe4 8.dxe4 you'd be just fine. That said, Black's offer of a free central Pawn is far too kind to pass up. I think you're definitely right to take. (Though even better would be 7.Nxd5, which grabs the Pawn and avoids doubling your own Pawns.) quote:8. Now seemed a safe time to castle. You should have captured on move 8 and not risked letting this opportunity slip away. Your opponent is now simply down a Knight for nothing. This would in all likelihood be a game-winning advantage for a stronger player; at your level it's still quite a nice lead. Castling is important but this is much higher priority, unless Black is mounting an immediate and reasonably serious attack that you need to get the King away from. quote:12. I noticed a possible rook fork from black. In fact 12.Bb3 looks all right, blocking the way to the b-pawn and moving the Bishop to a diagonal where maybe there's more going on. So the lesson here about how to respond to your opponent's threats is twofold. First, calmly assess whether the threat is really something to worry about at all. Then if it is, try to defend with a multipurpose move that improves your position and blocks the threat, rather than a passive move like 12.a3 which does nothing to help you. quote:17. Nf5 seems to have better results than Qxd8. Qg4 or Qh5 avoids losing either the Queen or Knight here. (Qc1 even saves the c-pawn too.) You can afford to spend a few passive, even awkward defensive moves to get all your pieces comfortable and out of danger. You're up a Queen for a Bishop and entitled to a pretty easy win if you just keep things simple. quote:19. I think black should have played Be8, but then again this was the easy setting. McNerd fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 20:09
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McNerd posted:Castling gets your King to a place where it's safe from mating attacks as well as just little obnoxious tactics like forks and pins. Also it helps get your Rook into the game, which tends to be hard. More to the point, rooks generally belong on open or half open files. Odds are that the c, d, and/or e files will open first in most openings and the King's rook will likely be most effective on the e file and the Queen's rook on the c or d file. As always, that's a general rule not to be followed blindly.
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Sep 10, 2014 22:22
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dee eight posted:More to the point, rooks generally belong on open or half open files. Odds are that the c, d, and/or e files will open first in most openings and the King's rook will likely be most effective on the e file and the Queen's rook on the c or d file. As always, that's a general rule not to be followed blindly. As well, castling is usually how you connect the Rooks along the back rank (i.e. clear the space between them so that they protect each other). This is a textbook example of great piece coordination. The Rooks protect each other, and one can take over the other's duties if it moves or is traded or even sacrificed. It's also a first step toward doubling the Rooks on the same file, which can be a very powerful formation if you can create a target or a weakness to exploit there.
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Sep 11, 2014 00:01
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Thanks for the comments, McNerd. That gives me some stuff to think about.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:11
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Very welcome. By the way, nice mate! Of course it's easier (and generally more useful) to talk about what went wrong than what went right, but sometimes I forget that newer players may be discouraged by such negativity; sorry if it comes off that way.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:14
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Black to play: Ideas? This is from one of the one or two games I play everyday at lunch because, frankly, there's nothing else to do during that time. If I'm just talking about how I feel about Chess (aka bullshit), I don't like the formation black sometimes makes like in the upper right corner. It's some kind of fortress thing that seems impenetrable, but I could never see myself ever making it. I want to be out in the open; I want my pieces to be across the board and active, not huddled up in a little corner somewhere in a third of the board. What's it called exactly? Is it a bad thing? How wrong am I to prefer something like how white is in this picture as compared to black?
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Sep 11, 2014 22:47
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Er, resign? Black is down a piece and very, very shortly to be down two pieces (dat white square bishop is lost).
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Sep 11, 2014 23:18
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 23:38 |
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silvergoose posted:Er, resign? Black is down a piece and very, very shortly to be down two pieces (dat white square bishop is lost). Yeah, I just captured his knight with my black bishop (Because he moved the pawn on the far right) and now it's his turn to move.
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Sep 11, 2014 23:19
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