Ok, so this post is a little late (round 3 is going to go down on Tuesday) but I just haven’t had the time.
In round 1 I was paired against Laurie Chen, rated 707, but you never can tell with these kids. I ended up winning easily, but wasted a number of moves screwing around rather than making any good use of my opening setup. She eventually blundered and in the process handed me some moves to pry her kingside wide open. Online replay at http://www.njord.org/~steve/mychess/mcc1206.htm
In other news it turns out that I am definitely playing in the wrong section this month. The section breaks at the MCC vary slightly from month to month to keep the player pools from getting too stagnant. This month has the lowest low section (U1300). Most of the other players rated under 1300 that are of a similar strength to me played up into the U1600 section (and are doing quite well there). I look at them knocking off these 1300 and 1400 level players and think that should be me. Now I’m down here in this U1300 section with no one within 100 official rating points of me, but it’s worse than that since I’m unofficially 1231 after the Pillsbury Memorial tournament (more on that later). At this point I’ll be a little disappointed if I _don’t_ win this section, but I’m fearing it’s going to be a lost month in terms of playing any games that are actually teaching me something.
Steve Wollkind (1120) — Laurie Chen (707)
MCC Holiday Swiss (2006) (1) MetroWest Chess Club
2006.12.05 1-0 C28i
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 Bc5 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.f4 O-O 6.Nf3 d6 (D)
7.f5 b6
- ( 7…h6 8.Nd5 Nd4 9.Nxf6+ Qxf6 10.Nxd4 Bxd4 11.c3 Bb6 12.Qh5 John Emms, Attacking with 1 e4 )
8.Na4
- Following white’s normal plan of exchanging off the dark squared bishop to castle, but I think that I should have played Nd5 and planned to not castle. Nd5 helps get rid of the annoying knight on f6. Bg5 is also an option, as black hasn’t yet played h6.
- ( 8.Nd5 )
8…Bb7 9.Nxc5 dxc5 10.O-O Re8 (D)
11.h3
- Trying to start my pawn storm, but it is premature. Again, Bg5 to exchange off the f6 knight would have been better.
11…h6 12.a4
- To prevent an annoying b5 and to give the bishop a flight square if black tries to exchange it with Na5. Probably the wrong idea here, but seems ok to try to prevent annoyances on the queenside before proceeding elsewhere.
12…Qe7 13.Nh2 (D)
- My third iffy move in a row. I’m wasting a lot of time here and getting away with it since black isn’t doing much of anything. The idea was to get the knight to help out with the pawn pushes so that a pawn on g4 will be defended and allow h4 to be played. If there is any use to this move, it probably lies in Ng4 to exchange away the f6 knight.
13…Rad8
- Pinning the d pawn.
14.Qe2
- ( 14.g4? Nxe4! )
14…Nd4 15.Qf2 Ne6?? (D)
- I don’t know what black’s plan was here. This move just drops a knight.
16.fxe6 fxe6 17.Bxh6 gxh6 18.Qxf6 Qd6?? (D)
- This allows a forced mate. Better, but still losing, is Qxf6 Rxf6 Kg7
- ( 18…Qxf6 19.Rxf6 Kg7 20.Raf1 +/- )
19.Qg6+ Kh8 20.Rf7 Qd4+ 21.Kh1 Rg8 22.Qh7# 1-0
Diagrams generated using Steve Eddins’ Chess Imager http://www.eddins.net/steve/chess/chessimager
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