TCCL 2013 round 3

Before the game:

I realized on Wednesday before the match that I had misidentified my next opponent as another. I played him in the 2012 Minnesota closed and have a good idea what he will play with black. I will review my Kavalek KID as white, but I could have used my time more wisely.

After the game:

We drew the match with 2 wins and 2 losses. We are still in first place but tied now. Four rounds to go and some stiff teams ahead.

My opponent did play the Kavalek as I suspected (1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c5 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.d4 d6 6.O-O c6 7.Nc3 Qa5 8.e4 Bg4 9.h3 Bxf3).

I tried to mix it up a bit and surprise him with 10.Qxf3, as I had played Bxf3 in the last game. 10...Nfd7 11.Rd1 Nb6 12.Qe2 Qb4 13.Bf1 was my prepared line, but he then departed from  my preparation with the blunder 13...d5. His threat is dxc4.

white to move

It took me a bit to realize that I had 3 attackers on the d5 pawn, and he only had two defenders. A complete exchange would end with a fork of his queen and e7-pawn, but he does not have to take and  better is to drive off the defending knight. 14.exd5 cxd5 15.c5 N6d7? is another mistake. He had to play 15...Nc8 no matter how ugly it looks, or give up a piece to get some counter play with 15...Nc6. White would still have a tremendous advantage. 16.Nxd5 Qa5 to cover the c7-square. At this point, black is busted, as all reasonable moves give a great advantage for white. Houdini likes Nxe7+ best, but I played 17.Qxe7 to avoid possible counterplay by black, because I saw the coming combination (Bd2 and b4 are also good). 17...Nc6 18.Qxd7 Rad8 19.Ne7+ Nxe7 20.Qxe7 Bxd4

white to play

21,Rxd4 Rxd4 22.Bh6 puts black away. 22...Qd8 is the only move to prevent mate, then I chose the simplification into an easily won endgame with 23.Qxf8+ Qxf8 24.Bxf8 Kxf8, where I am a piece and a pawn up. The attack can be continued with 23.Qe5, which is what Houdini likes, but as fun as that might be I could not calculate a win OTB that was better than what I chose.

2nd RCC vote chess game

An interesting benoni like King's Indian Defense, where we played white.

Knight Moves

Chessgames.com puzzle of the day for October 20th, 2012 was very interesting. It was from Lewi vs Adamski at the 1969 Rubinstein memorial. It is black's 18th move.

There are a lot of interesting things about this position.

• f3 is potentially weak if the e2-pawn is removed. Black ...f3 safely locks in white's light square bishop.
• h3 is a weak square
• White's queen and rook are in a knight fork geometry
• White's king and the c3-square are in a knight fork geometry
• The key e-pawn is only defended by the Nc3

It is a hard problem, but try to solve it before you look at the game here.

A club game, of a sort

Our local chess club has a presence on Chess.com, where we recently played a very interesting vote chess game. We made lots of comments, so it was more of a consultation game.

TCCL 2013 first round

Rochester brought three teams to this years Twin Cities Chess League. We have arranged the teams according to rating, so we have good, better, best.

We were lucky in that a team dropped out of the gold division, so we have a team in each of the three divisions gold, silver, and bronze. This will allow us the maximum flexibility in substitutions, as a player can play on teams in different divisions.

I am 4th board on the team in the Gold division. I pulled out the Pirc against another class A player, and he chose the 150 attack. It ended up in one of those opposite castling pawn storm races, and I managed to get my attack in first. I should be facing some stiff opponents, but probably not as difficult overall as last year. (when I was playing 1st board on a team in the silver division)

All three Rochester teams won their first match.

Here is a problem position from my game, black to move and win. Tthere are several good moves that maintain black's advantage (including the one I played), but only one that puts the game away.

highlight to see solution: 23...Nbc4 24.Qa4 Na3+ 25.Qxa3 (25.Kxb2 Qc3+ 26.Kc1 Nec4)

Funny

It's been a busy month and I have neglected the blog.

I have been writing about chess almost daily, but it has been commentary on ongoing vote chess games on Chess.com. The local chess club has a group there, and the discussion has been fun. I think both games will form blog posts when they are done.

I have been playing a lot of online turn based chess, and the games have not been interesting. I am climbing up the rating ladder. I am currently in the Sept tournament on Chess.com in the 1600-1800 section.

I have learned that the light square bishop is important to keep in a KID exchange variation. I was definitely missing the piece in an online correspondence game that is almost finished.

I did not play well in the Noel Skelton Labor Day tournament. I was low on sleep and had a lot of allergy problems. I need to pay more attention to feeling well at a tournament.