Mysterious Rook Moves

Round 2 of the November Swiss tournament at the MCC saw me paired against Walt Champion. Walt is in his 60’s and plays very solid chess. I’ve seen him around the club a fair bit (frequently holding off other good players) but didn’t have a chance to play him until now. I had white in a Closed Sicilian, and managed to get a winning position, but was distracted by paper tigers, couldn’t see a clear path to victory, and took a draw. This is two out of the last 3 games at the MCC now where I’ve taken draws in winning positions against equal or higher rated competition. I must be getting soft in my old age.

Continue reading MCC November Swiss Round 2: Draw

Two months in a row I’ve had the same opponent in the first round. This isn’t too surprising given how pairings are made. Most chess tournaments use what is known as the “swiss” pairing system. Basically, starting with the people with the best scores so far, you take each group of people with the same score, sort by rating, split into a top half and bottom half, and pair across. Player 1 plays player n/2+1, and so forth. There are some additional rules for dealing with odd numbers of players, evening out the color distribution, and making sure you don’t play the same people twice.

At any rate, since the pool of players stays somewhat constant over the months, and the ratings don’t change THAT fast, it’s no surprise that things shook out the same way again. This time I had black, though, so I got to trot out my new black defense one more time. It’s still very rough around the edges, but at least I wasn’t busted by move 6 like I was last week.

This game is a bit sloppy on both sides. I gave white too much space at the start, then gave back the pawn he let me win, and more, and then had a hard time finding a win in a fairly level endgame until my opponent offered a queen trade that turned out to be winning for me.

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Unexpected but nice moment: when I arrived to sign up for this month’s tournament, I was informed that my tie for second place last month won me 30 dollars, which is a net of 10 after paying for the registration. It’s not much, but if I can win even a small amount of money playing this game I can’t be doing it all wrong.

This week figures to involve more chess than usual for me, as the Boston University open, which happens every November, is taking place this Saturday. It’s a four round tournament, G/60 (players get 60 minutes to make all their moves) so you can get it done in a day. It’s always a good time, and I’m looking forward to it.

In the fourth and final round I had black against Alex Jones, who is right around the same level that I am. I’m still trying to learn a new opening as black, and got myself into serious trouble right at the start of this one. Fortunately I was able to hang on, inflict some positional weaknesses in my opponents position, and work it back to a draw.

I probably should have had better….

From the final position in the game, with fresh eyes it now looks to me like I should have been able to win. My opponent offered the draw and my thought process was more or less as follows:
1. I’m lucky not to have lost this game
2. My chess has been pretty awful at times tonight
3. In this position, I’m certainly not worse, and maybe am slightly better, but I don’t see a clear path to victory
4. I’ve been playing chess for nearly 4 hours, I’m tired, I’m likely to blow this if I continue

So I took the draw. In hindsight, I think the thought process should have been:
1. The position is more or less safe, and by playing a few more moves I’m unlikely to be any worse off and maybe I’ll be able to see further or a plan will become clear
2. The top board in the section had already finished with a draw, so the leader of the section already had 3.5 points and I needed a win in this game to tie, so I should have pressed for a win even if it cost me and I ended up losing
3. I’ll never improve my endgame play without actually playing the endgames I reach, so I should probably play in general and only take a draw in a clearly drawn position. Why be afraid to lose?

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So, 3/4 points on two wins with white and two draws with black in my new opening….both of which easily could or should have been losses. Overall, a good tournament, and it pushed my rating back over 1500, which isn’t super important to me, but it’s nice anyway.

Metrowest Chess Club’s Thanksgiving Swiss starts this Tuesday night!

Round 3 was played last night and for the first time in a couple of months I was paired against someone rated over 200 points higher than I am. A detailed discussion of the USCF rating system (and my issues with it) is coming later, but for those of you who aren’t familiar with ELO systems, but for now just know that this implies that if the ratings system is well calibrated, this opponent should beat me about 76% of the time.

I had white, though, and that tends to be quite an advantage for me. I ended up winning the game, and I’m very happy about that, but this was one of those games where you win, go home and look over the game, and realize you ought to have lost. I never know what to make of that. Should I feel satisfied about the win? Should I be upset that I willingly played into lines that were completely losing without even knowing it? I’m really not sure how I feel about this. Many of the games I have won have contained a position where my opponent could have beaten me with reasonable play.

I guess this is just the nature of the chess beast, and I’m always going to make mistakes….as is often said of chess, and low level chess especially: the winner is usually the one who makes the second to last major mistake.

This game was no exception.

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So, 3 out of 4 rounds are in the bank and I’m sitting on 2.5 points. Next week I’m provisionally paired against another player with 2.5 points who is rated 1600. I’m scheduled to have white again, which will help. There’s 1 player with 3/3 and he’s paired against another player with 2.5, so if I win and the 3/3 draws or loses, I can tie for first in the group, which would be nice. I haven’t come in first in a tournament at the MCC since December of 2006 when I was beating up on 10 year olds in the under 1400 section…

The transition to wordpress is pretty much done and I finally had some time to sit down and annotate some recent games, so here we are. The October tournament at the Metrowest Chess Club is half way done, and so far I have a win and a draw. Also, a quick warning to anyone reading this via RSS in Google Reader, Google Reader won’t display the flash chessboards, so you won’t be able to see the games unless you click through to the actual blog.

In round 1 I had white against a player rated between 4 and 500 points lower than me. I got a win in reasonably clean fashion.

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In round 2 I had a black against a player of about the same rating as me. I’ve been really tired of the Scandinavian Defense, so this was my first use of the Modern Defense in a serious tournament game. It was a total mess, though not because of the opening. To be honest, we were both lucky to get a draw in this game, but I was luckier, as I gave him many more winning chances than he gave me.

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I’ve played 17 tournament games since coming back from my chess hiatus, and I’m finally getting back into it, but I’m missing way too many simple tactical ideas. I guess I need to do more tactics puzzles, but they’re just not as interesting as reading about strategic ideas. It’s a hobby and it’s supposed to be fun, but….is it more fun to read what I want to read and then have an unsatisfying performance, or do somewhat more boring preparation and play a better game when the time comes?

Maybe this weekend I’ll post the game for round 4 of Back to School Swiss. I lost, but I had a win and didn’t find it. For now, though, my second effort vs. Mr Dan Callahan. The last time we played, about a year ago, we were both rated in the 1100’s and have each come a long way since then.

Blunderprone, you said you’d give me some suggestions vs the London…

Dan Callahan (1339)    —    Steve Wollkind (1533)
MCC Trick or Treat Swiss (2008)  (1)   Natick, MA
2007.10.02     0-1     D02m

My second time facing the London, but apparently I didn’t learn anything after the first one (played roughly 6 weeks prior to this game). How to Beat 1. d4 by James Rizzitano suggests that black play c5 here. I thought about it, but prefered to get the light bishop outside the pawn chain and solidify with e6.

( 3…c5 )

Exactly the kind of move I can never resist. It’s the f pawn with white and the c pawn with black, and I love to push it to the 5th (4th) rank if I can restrict a bishop by doing so. Perhaps it creates too static a formation, but I like having the space.

Questionable, in my mind. Giving up a developed bishop to kill my knight in its bed doesn’t make sense to me. Additionaly, this brings my rook to the B file, which helps prepare to push the b pawn to make a break.

I sensed that this move might be premature, but didn’t have a great way to combat it. At the same time, I felt that it wasn’t doing much for white. I think I was wrong. It brings a second attack on my c pawn and pins the b pawn down to the defense of the forking square c6.

A move I should have seen coming a mile away. By my count white can now win a pawn by force, with other dangerous moves in the air. With the c-pawn advanced, the Queen’s knight gone and the light squared bishop locked outside the pawn chain, checks on the a4-e8 diagonal are problematic. Even worse, the knight on e5 is now a serious problem since black can’t play Qd7 to block a check either. I considered just giving up a pawn to castle immediately, but decided against.

A mistake. Luckily, white decided to save his knight, but if he had exchanged everything off black would have had some serious problems.

( 12.fxe4 fxe5 And things get ugly. Qh5 is probably quite strong here. )

Spending another move to prevent the loss of the knight, and finally there is time to protect the c pawn and end the threats of Qa4+.

Finally whisking the king to safety. Someday I’ll learn to do that before sending my pawns rushing up the board.

White obviously worried about later threats on the h pawn, but this move seems both premature (there is no tangible threat yet) and weakening.

Looking ahead to needing some defense on h2 with the option to put double the rook with the queen on the d file.

Completing the maneuver. The threat is not subtle, but I felt that white might have trouble getting his pieces out of one another’s way to defend it. During the game I wondered if my advantage was actually on the queenside, and whether I should have been pushing the a pawn at some point.

My plan was to try and get at white’s king. The computer hates it and wants me to rip up the center.

A bad mistake, giving me exactly what I wanted: an attack on h2. White had many better defensive options including dxe5.

Now the mate threat must be addressed.

The mate threat returns. The knight has to get out of the way and the c and d pawns are going to become a serious problem for white.

Black resigned here, expecting Qxh2 and some ugliness to follow.

( 27…Qxh2+ 28.Kf1 And I am forced to admit that I don’t see the obvious winning plan here. Black must be winning, but it’s the sort of position where I would make it more of a grind than it needs to be. I was sort of surprised my opponent resigned after Bg2, but thankful… )

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Diagrams generated using Steve Eddins’ Chess Imagerhttp://www.eddins.net/steve/chess/chessimager