Ron Harrison

On Wednesday I drew against Ron Harrison in round 2 of the Derbyshire Individual championship, a great result for me considering he's rated 108 (about 1790 fide) compared to my 46 (apparently about 1480 fide, but think is inflated). We played in Belper and it was a long long game. It ended up with me having two pawns and a rook against his pawn and rook, but I couldn't figure out a way of winning so offered a draw instead of playing on in a tired state and maybe losing.

[Event "Derbyshire Individual Championship"]
[Date "2007.11.28"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Ron S Harrison"]
[Black "Dean Madden"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B01"]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. Bc4 c6 5. d3 Bf5 6. Bd2 Qc7 7. Qf3 e6 8. Nge2 Bd6 9. g4 Bg6 10. h4 h5 11. g5 Ne7 12. Nf4 Nd7 13. Nxg6 Nxg6 14. d4 Qb6 15. Ne4 Qxd4 16. Bc3 Nge5 17. Bxd4 Nxf3+ 18. Kd1 O-O 19. Bxg7 Kxg7 20. Nxd6 b5 21. Be2 Nde5 22. Bxf3 Nxf3 23. Ne4 Rad8+ 24. Ke2 Nd4+ 25. Kf1 Nxc2 26. Rc1 Nd4 27. Rh3 Rc8 28. Rhc3 Rfd8 29. Ng3 Kg6 30. Ne2 Nxe2 31. Kxe2 Rd6 32. Rc5 a5 33. Rxb5 cxb5 34. Rxc8 Rd5 35. f3 Rd4 36. Rc5 Rxh4 37. Rxb5 Rh2+ 38. Kf1 h4 39. Kg1 Rc2 40. Rxa5 Rxb2 41. a4 Ra2 42. Ra7 Kxg5 43. Rxf7 Rxa4 44. Kg2 Rf4 45. Rg7+ Kh5 46. Rg8 1/2-1/2

It was an interesting game, swinging back and forth. The time controls for this tournament are 36 moves in an hour and a half, then add 30mins to completion. So plenty of time to really analyse each position.

I played a normal Scandinavian defence, until he started a kingside pawn push and I had to improvise a bit while still trying to catch up in development. Thankfully I just about managed to get to an evenish middlegame position.

Thankfully he missed Qe2 in the position below, he spotted it only after he played the wrong move.

This allowed me to keep the pawn advantage and simplify down a bit. Shortly after he played a nice bishop sacrifice to get the pawn back. What helped me after this was him having a wide open centralised king that couldn't castle, so I picked up another pawn.

Something I overlooked later on was Rxb5 below, I still have trouble getting myself to consider moves which appear to lose material initially, but obviously he could get another pawn out of it.

By move 34 below, I had started fatiguing. I wasn't really thinking on what the whole point now was. I needed to try and promote a pawn, and take away his pawns. His pawn on h4 is obviously weak and should have been the point of attack, but I just played defensively trying to guard my own pawns on the other side of the board.

Thankfully he gave me another chance to play Rd4, and I managed to create the passed pawn on h5. This gave him time to create his own passed pawn on a2, but I could easily get my rook behind it.

The final position is below. Fritz initially thinks I have a 1pawn advantage but after a few seconds thought agrees the game is drawn. I doubt there is much I could have done.

Tuesday of last week was the 3rd and 4th round of the Derbyshire Cup & Plate, two 30mins games. I again played for the C Team, had a nice win in the first game after reaching an evenish endgame but much more time left on my clock. Second game I blundered a knight after playing against a weird looking Scandinavian where he just kept attacking with the queen and not developing, but I played too quickly to really exploit it.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, the Derbyshire Rapidplay Tournament, six 30mins games in the U90 section at my home club.

Circles update:

I completed the first chapter of 'The Complete Chess Workout' with 58 out of the 100 correct. The next chapter is much more difficult, so far I've got 7 correct out of 21. But I'll still plow on as I'm enjoying them.