This was my fourth encounter with Mr. Hong. In our previous 3 games I had managed a measly half a point, but last night I got the better of him. I don’t think we were playing on even footing though: he had an unexpectedly complicated evening and arrived late and a bit frazzled. In the past he’s shown himself to be an extremely solid player.
6 … Nd4 wasn’t as strong as it looked, but looked strong enough to make my opponent think he had no choice but to lose the Exchange. The game lasted until move 20, but after 7 … Nxc2+ white is in serious trouble.
Also: on Dan Schmidt’s advice I am now “not playing that modern defense crap” anymore. When I first started playing chess I played e5, and then I got afraid of how much you have to know and be prepared for, but in my efforts to avoid the King’s gambit, Spanish, Italian, Scotch and friends I ended up playing openings that gave me weird positions that were hard to play correctly.
2010 will be a year of not living in fear and taking it straight to white’s throat in the open games! On the downside this means that I once again have to pick an opening to use against d4.
Two games into the month, two wins from the black side. I’ll be playing on the first board next week and should have white.
You might find this link of interest. Amazingly i remembered to send it:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak
Nice job! Here is some discussion of the method I use to keep my memory capable of playing the open games. It has worked out superbly for me.
dfan.org/blog/2009/07/04/mnemosyne/
dfan.org/blog/2009/09/11/mnemosyne-update/
In fact the article Blunderprone links to is what first inspired me to try out spaced repetition!
Steve – well done in this game & congrats on dominating this month!