Notts Congress Rd4&5

Sunday was a bad day for me after a good first day. I threw away round 4 with a mistake on move 8, miscalculating the resulting position from some trades. I missed a chance to get back into it by not playing Rxd4 below.


PeterMellorvDeanMadden.pgn

Round 5 was the most frustrating game for me. I was ahead but threw it away by not visualising properly.

I was happy that I spotted 11.Ncxe5 below (11...Bxc5 12. Nxe5 Qxe5 13. Bc3 skewers the Queen to the rook). Fritz says 11. Ba5 is even better.

In the position below I played 33 Nxg6. For some reason I thought him taking with the Queen would leave his Rook undefended. Obviously didn't think it through.

Shortly afterwards he put me out of my misery.

DeanMaddenvRonaldWatson.pgn

Notts Congress Rd3

Round 3 of the Nottingham congress I played Sean McDonald. He played the Pirc defense and I tried to play a symmetrical Kings Indian Attack against it. His big mistake was missing the Knight fork on move 33. I got into deep time trouble in this game, and stopped taking score with a few minutes left, it ended up with King and Rook versus King when he resigned with me having a minute or two left. Move 54 was the one that sealed it for me.

DeanMaddenvSeanMcDonald.pgn

Nottingham Congress 2009

I'm playing in the minor section of the Nottingham Congress, lost the first game but didn't play too badly. The mistake in the end was deciding to exchange the knight for the bishop. Could maybe have hung on for the draw if I hadn't done that. Second game was a bit too easy, against an ungraded player who I don't think has encountered the Fried Liver before. Games:

MichaelZhangvDeanMadden.pgn

DeanMaddenvArjunNehra.pgn

Mick Orridge - RIP

I was saddened to hear last night that Mick Orridge, a local player, had passed away on Saturday. He was a genuinely nice guy, and I'll miss him a lot.

I've been told he had been diagnosed with cancer late on in the last few months. He was always energetic and full of life, much more so than a lot of people younger than him.

This season was his first as chairman of Spondon chess club, he'll be missed by everyone.

His funeral is on Friday 17th April 2009 at 1:15pm at Derby crematorium. He wished for donations to be made to Macmillan Cancer Support instead of flowers.

Derbyshire Individual Rd.2

I played Harry Ratner in the Derbyshire Individual championship Tuesday night.

DeanMaddenvHarryRatner.pgn

I didn't enjoy the game very much, and misplayed the opening. I should have played 7.Nc3. He launched a good attack on my queenside, and I didn't get much of an attack going towards his kingside which was my aim.

When I was starting to hate the position, I tried opening it up and making it quite sharp. But it didn't really phase him and Harry deserved the win. Hopefully one of these days I'll beat him, but I say that everytime!

The main tactical mistake was in the position below. I played d4, it's one of those moves where you realise the mistake as soon as you let go of the piece, but for whatever reason it didn't register when thinking about it before touching the piece.


This weekend should be fun, it's the Spectrum Chess Derbyshire congress.

English Chess Forum

Just a quick note to let people know that the English Chess Forum has had to move location to http://www.ecforum.org.uk/. It was originally the English Chess Federation official forum, but the ECF has decided to disassociate itself with it, blaming it for losing sponsors. Looks more like they don't want freedom of expression to me. Anyway, the ECF has removed any links to it, but I'd recommend the forum to all English players as a good way of debating issues and keeping up to date with the latest news and politics.

Leicester Congress 2008

I played in the amateur (u80ECF) section of the Leicester congress over the weekend of 10-12th October. Better late than never, here's how I got on.

Unusually for this time of year, we had some very bright and sunny days. The venue unfortunately had no blinds or curtains in the smallish hall we played in, meaning a lot of players were looking directly into the sun in the afternoon games. This was a bit of a let down as the venue for last years congress was much better and bigger.

Anyway I ended on 2/5, with four draws and one loss out of the five games. Too many draws, and I feel like I had good winning chances in most of the games including the loss. But I was happy to play in some good competitive games and a few of them went to interesting end games.

DeanMaddenvRichardGreenwood.pgn

Game 1 on Friday night was against Richard Greenwood (69ECF) of Northampton. It got down to a Queen and Rook endgame, and I felt he had a stronger position. I had a chance of perpetual check and took it, as he had a mating threat on f2. However it looks like I could have played Re2 and have better chances.

PeterBracevDeanMadden.pgn

Game 2 on Saturday morning was against fellow Spondon player Peter Brace, I was hoping they might keep players from the same club apart. It was pretty much a fair draw with no big mistakes by either of us.

DeanMaddenvColinRoss.pgn

My sole loss was against Colin Ross (73ECF) of Littlethorpe, who apparently reads this blog, so I can't saying anything nasty about him :).


In the position above, Colin chose to sacrifice his knight by taking g4, which looks to probably be a mistake, although he does get 2 pawns and opens up my king. As the pieces were traded off he got a passed pawn on the h-file which caused me a lot of trouble.


In the position above I threw the game away by playing Qxg3, totally miscalculating that h1Q, Bxh1 leaves my Queen undefended. Qf8+ would have given me possible winning chances.

LucaszKacprzakvDeanMadden.pgn

The Sunday morning game against Lucas had a massively tactical opening, so I thought it'd be over quick, but it dragged out into a long game and I had little time left on my clock at the end.

It worked into a Queen, Rook and more pawns versus Queen and 2 Knights. I should really have won this game, but didn't kill him off.

DeanMaddenvDorothyBlampied.pgn

The last game against Dorothy was bit of a non-event. I was very uncomfortable with the sun in my face, and was very thankful to accept a draw offer after 20 moves.