Jan 22 Tournament results

I finished 2-1 in the tourney this weekend. We only had 4 players in the open section, so the director put us in a round robin. We were strewn across the rating scale, one each of B,C,D and E players, and the results followed the ratings.

My game with 'E'  was interesting, because he played the opening quite well. The middle game was non existant, as a general exchange of pieces in the center, ending with the exchange of queens on c6 placed us in a normal Pirc engame. Lots of Pirc lines lead to these kind of positions:

White to move

Black has a central pawn mass, but three pawn islands. Black needs to restrain the activity of white's pieces and get those central pawns moving, before white can pick off the isolated rook pawns.

Here he made an inaccurate move: 1. b4? He wanted to preserve his Nc6, but I don't think he can, and wanted to get his queenside pawn majority rolling to make a passed pawn. I was gong to try to prevent his knight from having a central outpost, and push my center pawn mass, but his move allowed me to make the pawn at c3 backward. I played 1...d5 to do this, but this was not the best move, because it weakened the dark squares in the center, Nb6 would have been better and make it easier to prevent his knight finding a secure post. His next move 2.f4 reinforced the dark square weakness, but allowed me the opportunity to create a second weakness. I  added to my plan creating an artificially isolated pawn out of the one on f4 or a backward pawn on g3. The next few moves were about securing the c3 pawn as permanently backward. 2...Nb6 3.Rc1 a6 3.Ke2 Rc8 4.Nd4 Kd7 5.Kd3 for a while, the outpost on d4 will be secure for white's knight.

Black to move

With 5...h5, I begin to create a second weakness on the king side. I learned the idea of an artificially isolated pawn from Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess. 6.Nf3 Nc4 I take the opportunity to begin to shift my knight to e4. I think he was trying to create a weakness on my e6 pawn by tempting me to play f6. 7.Rhe1 h4 Now the f4 pawn is either artificially isolated, or white will have a backward pawn on g3.

White to move

8.Ne5+ Ke7 9.Rb1 White does not have any good moves here, but Nxc4 would have been better. Long term, I will remove all outposts for this knight, while mine will be very well posted on e4. 9...Nd6 10.a4 Rhg8 11. Re2 f6 The Ne5 must vacate 12.Nf3 Rg4 13.Nd4 Ne4 My knight has reached its outpost on e4 and white is further constrained. There is no hurry to take the pawn on f4 it is not going anywhere 14.Rc2 Rxf4 15.Ne2? Rf2 16.Rg1 

Black to move

White was running short on time, so I tried the trappy 16...h3, which is a good move, but not quite as good as the slow but sure 16...e5. After 16...h3, white cannot defend both c3 and g2. The g2 pawn cannot move, because both 17.g3 and 17.gxh3 Rf3+ 18.Kd4 Rc4#

diagrams for this post made from Apronus Chess