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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last night I had a nice game against Howard Bradbury in the club championship, another long game where I hung on for a while but was gradually outplayed towards the end when he launched his attacks. I'm not too disappointed as I can see myself improving and learning from these types of games. I'm holding on for much longer in games and making less mistakes. These sorts of games will give me experience and hopefully I can improve my mid to end game technique.
I allowed too many of his pieces to assemble around my king and on move 29 had to sacrifice rook for knight due to a mating threat.
On move 39 I had the position below. For the life of me I have no idea why I played Ne5, can't remember what I was thinking at all. Must have been a moment of chess blindness. If I would have played Nf6, Fritz thinks I'm back in the game. His rook is close to getting trapped and the e4 pawn is the only thing defending it.
I had a much more enjoyable day on Sunday at the Leek Congress (not sure why we in England call tournaments congresses). Even though I lost both games, they were good and competitive against stronger players with lots for me to learn.
The first game was against Alan Millward (95ECF) who plays for Macclesfield. We had a long analysis of the game afterwards, and I learnt a lot when he explained things he was thinking during the game.
He started off playing the Scandinavian but then fianchettoed kingside which I hadn't seen before. On move 20 he blundered his rook for a bishop, but I didn't have a massive advantage with him having the bishop pair.
I think one of my weakness is trying to form a plan for launching an attack. More experienced players tend to sense at the right moment when to start throwing pawns forward towards the enemy king, whereas I tend to play more passively and wait for things to happen. Anyone have any ideas on how I can improve this?
For example in this game, for ten or so moves, Fritz is screaming at me to play h4, h5, but the thought never occurred to me as I naturally think it will weaken my own king?
In the position below I blundered my rook back to even up the game by playing Qc1 leaving me open for Bh6. I tend to overlook bishop tactics quite often I've noticed, whereas I always check for knights. Something I need to actively think about I guess.
After this I was hoping for a draw, so in the position below I exchanged the knight with the bishop to simplify down. But this was a mistake as the knight in this position is stronger, and exchanging leaves his rook with the open file. It's nice to get to this stage of a game and have to think about it though!
He kept control of the open file and gradually squeezed my position until I was running out of moves and just moving the king back and forth. After swapping queens, my rook was stuck defending the b2 pawn and he could bring his king out to attack the pawns on the other side.
Final game was against Paul Clapham (82ECF) who plays for nearby Newcastle Under Lyme.
I rattled off the first 13 moves very quickly whereas he took a lot of time. But after completing the development I was trying to think of a plan of attack, whereas I should probably have had a bit more patience in this case and tried to control the centre.
I think the position below is where I started to go wrong. I moved the king to a8, but this was boxing it in and leaving it without anywhere to escape whereas moving it to e.g. c7 would have made it more active and less easily trapped. Also my light-squared bishop was particularly useless in this game, I'm not sure how I could have got it more involved.
He then picked the right moment to launch his pawns at my king, supported by his rooks, and my king was trapped in the firing line. I made it worse by hemming in the king with more pieces, until his attack was a winning one.
A brief circles update, the chess workbook section has been put on hold for the time being due to other things occurring. But I've been ploughing away at Chess Tactics server on and off.
I played the Moller attack against him but got confused when he played 7...Bxc3, as most people play Nxe4. On move 9 I should have played d5 instead of castling. It was one of the rare games where it was pretty much lost in the opening, I never got into the game and not much more to say about it.
I turned up for round two this morning and was paired against John Fenby, then with 2 minutes to go they announced some repairings. When I looked at the board I was the odd one out without an opponent. I'm pretty annoyed because there was at least one person who turned up at the venue to enter just 10 minutes before the start of the round, and just happened to be a member of the organisers club, then he gets a game but someone like me who applied a couple of weeks ago doesn't get a game.
So anyways I had to kill four hours, and then turned up for round 3 against a 13yr old called Adam S Arshad.
A new season in English chess started for me Tuesday night. I played Ted Pye in the Spondon club championship, a competition that runs throughout the season, an all play all for the members of the club. I counted about 18 people who turned up.
I've had many interesting games against Ted, usually wildly tactical. He was one of the first people I played when I joined a couple of years ago. He used to slaughter me all the time, but the games are more even now and I've managed to beat him once or twice. His ECF grade is about the same as mine, but he has a lot more playing experience and so outplays me in positions that I'm not used to. Luckily for me, he makes tactical mistakes, which I sometimes do and sometimes don't spot, and he doesn't always capitalise on my mistakes. He tends to make very open positions where lots of tactics crop up, I've noticed he tends to get frustrated in closed positions and throws pawns forward to open it up.
So anyway, this was a typical game. I made a mistake so that he had a material advantage, he made a mistake to allow me to have the advantage, he then had the advantage after another mistake, and finally mated me. Lots of things to go over. The good thing is I have lots of things to think about and try and learn from the game.
He played 2. Bd3 against my Scandinavian, a move I hadn't seen before and which I think he just makes up as he plays it. I thought about taking the pawn, but wasn't sure how it would play out so decided on developing my pieces.
The game got difficult for me when I played 22...Kg7 below. This allowed him to play Ng5, attacking the h7 pawn with his rook. I then played Qg8, allowing him to force a trade of my Queen for his rook and knight.
In the position below he played Qg1, but this allowed me to play Bf4+, also attacking his rook. He was able to then fork the rooks with his bishop, but for some reason decided not to take one.
However after this I was getting tired and didn't know how I was supposed to force a win with rooks and a knight versus a queen.
I then made the fatal error of playing Be5 below, not noticing he can fork king and rook on e3. Hen then ended it with a nice mate.
This weekend I'll be playing in the Leek congress, one game on Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday, each 2 hours per player long. I'm not sure if there will be relatively weaker players like myself so don't know if I'll expect to pick up any points. Looking forward to it anyway.
Last night I played the final club championship game of the season against Bert Loomes. When I've previously played against him with white he used to play the Philidor, but this time he played the French defence, with some moves that totally threw me. I was lost very early on.
When he played 4...Ba6, I just carried on playing the standard Kings Indian Attack, but in this case I should have altered the plan, playing Be2 so that I could castle safely.
In the position below, I miscalculated and played Bf1, overlooking that taking back with the Knight leaves me unable to castle. I could have in fact trapped his bishop by playing b4 followed by e5.
I then blundered by moving my Queen instead of taking back the bishop, thinking I'd discovered a way out of the mess.
I played Peter Brace for the first time yesterday. It was an okayish game but I was pretty disappointed with myself for never really getting any advantage in it. I was impressed with how Peter managed to usually pick the right move and didn't appear to make any major mistakes. The big mistake was from me when I allowed my knight to run out of escape squares.
I attempted to play the closed Sicilian as white for the second time, but soon forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I decided to give up my fianchettoed bishop to give him doubled pawns. Still not sure whether it was the right thing to do as it left him with the bishop pair and I had weakened pawns on the kingside.
I made a mistake in the position below:
I played b3 without thinking about how it lines up the Queen and a1 rook for a skewer. It's little things like that what I need to consider more, I tend to not think about them, that and making sure my pieces always have adequate escape squares.
The e4 knight was then trapped when attacked by a pawn, and once moved he could execute the skewer.
I played on for a bit since I still had two rooks, but Peter played accurately enough to force the win.
Before the game, Ian had me, Martin and Bert playing some weird team game where if you take a piece from your opponent, you can give it to your partner for his board. So lots of silly positions arose.
Tuesday night I got smashed against the strongest regular player at the club, Ian Gregory, in a club championship game. It was an interesting game where I made an unsound sacrifice, but I was never really in the game and it was good to see how he gradually built up his attack with massive control of the centre files.
There's a good post on the Boylston Chess Club Weblog, which sort of sums up why I am enjoying OTB chess much more than Internet chess. Something else I've found is that it helps to get rid of any other nagging worries and stress, because you're just totally engrossed in the board for a couple of hours.
8th and final round of the Spondon Summer Open was against Gary Davison. I was originally paired with Stuart Tabberer, but we got repaired after playing a few moves so that Gary could play someone he hadn't already played. In the position below I played 9...Nxd3, but better would have been Nfd7, attacking the loose knight and also threatening Nc5.
The main turning point of the game was the position below:
I'd just played 11...h6, and instead of moving the knight he played h4, sacrificing the knight for an open h-file for his rook. But he wasn't able to take advantage of it so was probably unsound.
Gary spent a long time thinking about move 16, probably about 20mins. So he then had about 15mins left for the 14 moves left until the time control. I just carried on taking my time to find the right moves, and let him bother about the time. I created a very strong attack, and on move 25 with a couple of minutes left he dropped his queen.
Very pleasing end to a good tournament for me: 3wins, 1 draw and 3 losses. Much better than 1 win and 1 draw from 8 last year.
In round 7 last Tuesday I was initially scheduled to play Harry Ratner, but since he didn't appear, organiser Bert Loomes took his place instead. It was a very interesting game, which I could probably spend hours analysing. It was very tight at the start, but then burst open with lots of tactical opportunities. I would have been happy with the draw initially, as I think I've always lost to him previously, but should really have won the game with the chances I had.
He played the Philidor defence, which looks to me as somewhat defensive for black, and blocks his own pieces in. So I tried to play positive and attacking, developing my pieces to good squares. It looks like I should have taken his pawn on e5 early on, as it would make the pawn that he takes back with very vulnerable. Below is the position before my 13th move.
I struggled for a while to come up with any ideas. I thought about Nh4, but saw that he could play Nxe4 leaving a discovered attack on h4. So I dismissed it, thought about other stuff, reconsidered Nh4, and played it forgetting what I'd only just thought about!
I was very lucky in that white is actually attacking the d6 pawn with his knight if black takes the h4 knight, which then leads to a fork of king and b7 bishop. He actually played 14...Bxd5 leaving the position below.
I rightly spotted Ba5 which attacks both the queen and d5 bishop, leading to a great position, even though the h4 knight is still undefended. When he played Nb6, I should have just taken it as I would still have the same advantage. But I picked the moves in the wrong order, and played Qxd5 instead. I was lucky in that he took back with his bishop after we swapped queens, as it lead to the position below:
I can now play Bxb5 because of the undefended rook. After he then moved his king, I missed the obvious bishop fork on c6, I was too worried about moving the h4 knight to safety. After that I threw away more of my advantage by not playing simply and safely, looking for tactics where there weren't any.
I managed to keep a pawn advantage going into a rook endgame, but didn't really have any strategy on how to force a win. I was trying to push a passed pawn, but he was able to defend against it easily. I should have got my king involved more, but kept putting it off. We swapped off rooks and it was a very drawish 2 pawns each endgame. I offered a draw in the position below but he wanted to play on.
He played e3, which was in fact a big blunder but I didn't take advantage of it. I played Kf1 to stop his pawn, but the possible winning move would have been f4, as I could still take his pawn later, and would have a pawn advantage. There would still be plenty of work to do, but would have had better chances.
Anyway I ended up with pawn against king, but had no chance of winning due to losing the opposition.
Tuesday night I played Terry Pearson (rated 124 ECF) in the 6th (out of 8) round of the Spondon Summer Open. I had a decent position up to the 17th move when he'd just played Be3:
I played Rxe4, figuring I'd have the advantage when I could take back his bishop with my bishop. But I didn't calculate any further ahead than that, missing where he could play Bxb6 threatening my queen and attacking my now undefended bishop on e4. A better move in the position above would have been Bxe4, he could have taken my rook but I would be able to win another minor piece.
After this he proved the superiority of two rooks against a rook and minor piece, and finished me off nicely.
Last night I played Louise for the first time in a long time control game. My idea was to play the closed Sicilian against her, but as is typical for my memory, I forgot move 3 was supposed to be g3, not d3. This didn't seem to make much difference to the game, and I suppose shows that learning openings is a waste of time for me and I might as well play any old move that develops or helps strengthen my position to get to an evenish middlegame.
By move 14, I'd just played Na4, and Louise had a much better position with a strong pawn centre and better placed pieces. But I think she pushed a bit too much by playing c4. This gave me a nice square for the Knight on c5, and weakened the pawn structure. She pushed the same pawn again which left me a pawn up. Shortly after I won another pawn.
The big mistake, easy to make, was playing Nd7 above. This allowed me to take the knight for free due to the discovered check from the Queen. Shortly after I skewered her Queen to pick up the rook for a bishop and she resigned on move 30.
I'm sure she'll have better luck next time, and is already much better than I was after only playing for a few months.
This evening I won against John Powell in Round 3 of the Spondon Summer Open. A bit of a strange game, where I was never really comfortable but managed to make the most of the strange opening and capitalised on my opponents mistakes.
He played 1...b6 which I can't remember playing against before, not sure if it's even got a name.
On move 15 I won a pawn, but I had a scare on move 18 when he sacrificed his bishop by taking my pawn on h4 and I was worried he had a mating attack:
But luckily my king had space and time to escape. We then came down to a rook, bishop and 5 pawns versus rook and seven pawns endgame. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to force a win.
Above I'd just played 30.Rd8, he then played Kc6 and I said I'll move the clocks back for the time control. He suggested a draw which I declined, then as I was picking up the clock he realised his mistake and resigned. I could play d5+ which gives me the rook. I hadn't noticed it yet as was concentrating on the clocks, so who knows if I would have actually played it? A strange end to the game.
Spondon Chess Club. Results Summer Open Championship.2008
Round 1 Archer Barry W ½ - ½ Atkins Nathan Heelan David W 1½ - 0 Bowes Getting T Williams David ½ - ½ Gregory Ian Hartley Dean M 1½ - 0 Sheldon Phillip Brown David 1½ - 0 Bradbury Howard Burke Steve 1½ - 0 Bramely Doug Loomes Herbert 0 – 1½ Pace Graham Smith Phil 1½ - 0 Madden Dean Hickling Richard 1½ - 0 Orridge Mick Davison Gary 0 -1½ Pye Ted Tabberer Stuart ½ - ½ Gibson Martin Somers Malcolm 0 – 1½ Brace Peter Crawley John 1½ - 0 Brace Louise Kirk Colin 1½ - 0 Hill Fred
Round 2 Crawley John 0 – 1½ Burke Steve Brace Louise 1½ - 0 Bradbury Howard Brace Peter 1½ - 0 Smith Phil Praeson Terry 1½ - 0 Davison Gary Gibson Martin 0 – 1½ Williams David Ratner Harry 0 – 1½ Somers Malcolm Gregory Ian 1½ - 0 Archer Barry W Pye Ted 1½ - 0 Hickling Richard Atkins Nathan 1½ - 0 Tabberer Stuart Pace Graham 0 – 1½ Hartley Dean M Kirk Colin 0 – 1½ Heelan David W Orridge Mick 1½ - 0 Sheldon Phillip Bramely Doug ½ - ½ Bowes Getting T
Round 3 Bowes Getting T 1½ - Gibson Martin Burke Steve ½ - ½ Gregory Ian Heelan David W 1½ - 0 Brace Peter Hartley Dean M 1½ - 0 Pye Ted Williams David ½ - ½ Atkins Nathan Hickling Richard 1½ - 0 Crawley John Somers Malcolm 0 – 1½ Orridge Mick Smith Phil 0 – 1½ Praeson Terry Brace Louise 0 – 1½ Kirk Colin Tabberer Stuart 0 – 1½ Bramely Doug Madden Dean 1½ - 0 Powell John Davison Gary 0 – 1½ O’Flannagan Paul Bradbury Howard 1½ v 0 Ratner Harry Sheldon Phillip ½ - ½ Loomes Herbert
Gregory Ian 2½ Madden Dean 1½ Archer Barry W ½ Gibson Martin ½ Heelan David W 4½ Somers Malcolm 1½ Brace Louise 1½ Brace Peter 3 Tabberer Stuart ½ Atkins Nathan 2½ Hartley Dean M 4½ Bowes Getting T 2 Kirk Colin 3 Smith Phil 1½ Bradbury Howard 1½ Hill Fred 0 Pye Ted 3
Burke Steve 3½ Hickling Richard 3 Williams David 2½ Pace Graham 1½ Sheldon Phillip ½ Bramely Doug 2 Crawley John 1½ Orridge Mick 3 Davison Gary 0 Loomes Herbert ½ Ratner Harry 0 Pearson Terry 3 O’Flannagan Paul H 1½ Powell John 0
I've just read the very sad news that a local player called Dave Brown died last Monday. He played most Tuesdays at Spondon, as well as for Long Eaton chess club. He was a great player who always played with a smile and was very kind and helpful. A sad loss.
Dave Brown† Geoff Gibson sends the sad and unexpected news that Long Eaton’s Dave Brown has died. He writes: Dave passed away at home [on Monday 9 June] following his return from cycling to Long Eaton – he had planned to go further, but changed his mind and returned home – perhaps he had a premonition of what was coming? It seems he had a heart attack on his settee and passed as he had lived – a quiet, dignified man, a little eccentric but much-loved by all who knew him. His wife said he has requested no funeral, but the family will hold a wake in his honour – details to be advised. His only request was that a beech tree be planted in his memory. And I’ll just add this: Dave was one of the tiny handful of players who seemed to treat winning and losing exactly the same. Whether resigning or accepting his opponent’s resignation, Dave always had a smile on his face. He will be missed.
Last night was the first round of the Spondon Summer Open, an 8 round swiss tournament that runs during the off-season summer break and attracts players from other local clubs that close over the summer.
I played Phil Smith, the same opponent I played in Round 1 last year. I managed a draw then, but last night played as black against him for the first time and lost.
He played an unusual 3rd move of Qf3, I was a bit worried how to defend against it so just exchanged queens.
My 8th move was a mistake, I played g6 above, allowing his knight to move to g5, attacking f7. This weakened the pawn structure.
By move 22 he'd taken a rook and 2 pawns for a knight and a bishop. I thought I'd blundered to allow him to do this, but Fritz still gives me the advantage. However I think you need a lot of skill to co-ordinate and prove that two minor pieces are better than a rook.
I was desperate to keep my rook on the board and tried to keep the bishop and knight active, and did quite well for a while.
The big move I missed was at move 38 above. I'd just been checking and chasing his king around, so automatically played Bf8+, i.e. as Bobby Fischer said: 'Patzer sees check, patzer gives check'.
I should have played Nd3+ instead, winning a rook for a knight. His rooks then forced the advantage and I resigned on move 48 below.
I'm on holiday for round 2 next week, so will hopefully do better in round 3!
Update:
Here's the game in the ChessFlash application, see ChessFlash.com for more details.
It was the first time I'd played him as white, he played the French. I'd just been reading about the best way to play Kings Indian Attack against different openings a couple of days ago, but foolishly skipped the French section as hadn't played against it in ages, doh!
Above is what I was looking at on move 6, he's just played the bishop to c5. I was now worried about him playing Ng4 and taking on f2, so played the weak h3. Better would have been to move the bishop then castle. Letting him take the rook for two pieces would have been ok.
Later on I had chances to push to e5, but left it too late, this left me with a weaker position.
By move 14 above I'd decide on the plan of action to attack his kingside, no matter if it was viable or not (it wasn't). So instead of defending the e4 pawn decided on a fruitless attack.
By move 17 above, I'd realised I'd messed up so decide to take a punt (i.e. make it worse) and sacrifice the bishop to h6. A better move would have been Nxg7 as taking it would have allowed me a discovered attack on his Queen.
I played on as I had 4 pawns against 2 on the kingside but his extra bishop was too strong and I never got anywhere. I certainly learned a lot from the endgame, i.e. how to win it from his side.
I've been reading Silmans Endgame book recently and am trying to digest the Lucena and Philidor positions, so will probably have a post on them soon.
GM Nigel Davies has been blogging recently at Tigerchess, interesting stuff. However I think he's gone a bit overboard in the stuff he's been writing about regarding a post at the Streatham & Brixton blog. Amusing comments here.
There's also been a lot of aggravation going on at English Chess Federation forum, after a number of board members resigned recently.
Last night was the Derby League end of season Jamboree. It's a four round quick play team competition. My first one was last year and I ended on zero. This time I ended up with one win and three losses so by my calculations I'll win every game in 2011.
The games were initially scheduled for 20mins each but were cut down to 15mins due to traffic problems causing delays for some players. I enjoyed the event, but am still quite poor at playing quickly. I either play too fast and blunder, or play too slow and run out of time.
First game was against Mick Orridge, he broke through my kingside very quickly and I was thinking I might lose within the first couple of minutes. But I managed to hang on and had a healthy lead in time. But then when he noticed he was behind on time he played faster and I started hesitating. He had a much stronger position, and eventually my flag fell when I'd ran out of ideas.
Game 2 was against someone who plays for Derby & Mickleover but I can't remember his name. This was one where I played too quickly and blundered early on. He played fast but very accurate.
I got my sole win against Barry Lings in round 3. We got down to an evenish endgame with him having about 8mins left and me 1min. I was able to promote a pawn and luckily stumbled into a mating position with about 10 seconds left.
Round 4 I lost to a girl! Only kidding Pete & Louise if you read this. I was a piece up early on, but shortly afterwards I gave a piece away too and we came to an evenish rook and pawns endgame. However I'd been playing much slower so didn't have much time left. I'm sure we both made loads of mistakes in the endgame, but she played better and when the dust cleared she had forced me to exchange rooks and had an unreachable passed pawn.
The Rolls Royce venue was great and I hope we play there again. Will post the full results here when the hardworking Bert sends them out.
Update:
Jamboree 2008 At Rolls Royce Chess Club (Nightingale Hall) Thursday May 8th 2008
Bert Loomes, Phil Smith and myself played for Spondon D; Gary Davison, Martin Gibson, and Pete & Louise Brace played for Spondon C; Spondon B were Doug Bramley, Mick Orridge, Phil Sheldon and Graham Pace; Spondon A were Ian Gregory, Mark Carter, Howard Bradbury and Richard Hickling (from what I can remember).
The Spondon Summer Open (an 8 round swiss) starts in June, very much looking forward to it.
I played Barry Archer last night, and got a draw in a very enjoyable game. That leaves my final score out of the 7 rounds standing at 4 draws and 3 losses. Doesn't sound great, but seeing as I was easily the lowest ranked player in the 16 entrants, I'm more than happy with it, as I was expecting to end on zero.
Above, 9.Nh4 was a move I hadn't seen before in the Scandinavian. After a good think I chose the correct Bg6, as I figured that him taking the bishop would allow me to take back with the h-pawn and even though I had doubled pawns the open h-file for my rook would be worth it and would allow me a chance to castle longside and launch an attack on his kingside.
I overcommitted a bit in the early middle game, thinking I had more of an attack than was really justified, and left some weaknesses for him to exploit. By move 23 he was up a pawn, but was forced to weaken his kingside pawn structure in the process.
On move 29 I had the nice position above where I was able to harass his king and get a pawn back. But I let the attack fizzle out and again he exploited weaknesses and picked up another pawn, I was lucky he overlooked some more dangerous tactical opportunities.
By move 43, we reached the endgame position above, and I was expecting to lose. I just played on because I didn't particularly know how I would exploit it so was hoping to learn from his play.
The game ended when he played 52.d6 and offered a draw. This position is indeed a draw according to Fritz, but it looks like he threw it away with 51.d5.
Last night I played Howard in the club championship, I'd played him a few weeks ago with the same colours in the Derbyshire Individual, so was wishing I'd studied that game beforehand. He doesn't think much of the way I play against the Sicilian, but it's all I know really and I don't think it's unsound. Where I'm going wrong is more middle game planning & tactics as far as I can see so won't worry too much about the opening for now.
I'm quite pleased with how I played the first h of the game, I was thinking clearly and had lots of plans during the game instead of aimlessly moving about, and was recognising his threats.
By move 23 he had got a strong knight on f4 (below), I think this shows the power of controlling the centre.
This weakened my kingside greatly, and he was able to launch a big attack that picked up a knight and left me with the position below to which I resigned:
I've decided on making Chess Tactics Server part of my official training, not sure on how I'll monitor it, but it's just something I enjoy doing now and then, it's very easy to just open it up and do a few problems. My current ratings etc are below. I don't think I'm really rated around 1163, but this just reflects the fact that I play quite slowly, if I can speed up a bit it will help my game I think.
Looking back at some older posts, my rating is slowly rising, what I hope to get out of it is speed in recognising the basic motifs, whereas my circles training will focus on slightly more difficult problems.
Update: I've been on a bit of a roll and have got it up to 1215, hopefully this reflects the improvements I've made in my game in the last 6 months or so.
I'm about to continue with the circles, after I put it on hold for a couple of months. I'd got through 136 problems, with about 50% accuracy. So that seems as good enough a point to start on circle 2. I realise the classic way of doing the circles was to do the whole thousand problems in one go, but it seems the alternative way of doing mini-sets works quite good as well. So will see how quickly I can go through the 136 again, and how accurately, then decide on whether to do another circle of the same problems or try another set. As I'm doing the problems from a book, I tend to just do them on lunch breaks etc, when I'm on the pc at home I prefer to use Chess Tactics Server, which I think complements the circles well. Good luck to the fellow knights who have joined during my temporary hiatus.
I'd taken a break from reading chess blogs for a while, but am now catching up with what I missed, thanks to Bloglines keeping a list of them. More bloggers are now posting video clips, analysing games and books etc. There are a bunch of good ones at Barnet Elizabethans Chess Club, and also BDK has posted reviews of all his books, starting here.
There's a good write-up of a players experiences playing in Moscow here, here and here.
Last night I played for Spondon 'D' in our last game of the season against West Notts 'C'. This was a crucial game to decide which of us would win a promotion place to Division 3. Luckily for us, two of our opponents didn't turn up, so we knew we were getting promotion after half an hour. Whether this will actually happen though is a bit confusing in that Spondon 'C' may well be swapping places with ourselves, so we might actually stay where we are.
Anyway, I had a good win against Michael Zhang, graded 90. I played a pretty standard Scandinavian opening. On move 14 he'd just played Bf4.
I don't know why I missed e5, I didn't consider it at all, was too preoccupied with Qb6. After I played that he made his fatal mistake of playing Nxe6, I'm not sure exactly what he was aiming for, but it looks like he miscalculated the sacrifice.
There were some hairy moments after this but I eventually managed to force the extra knight advantage to a win. I concentrated on playing simple safe chess, as I'd learnt from experience that I could still throw it away with all the power that was still left on the board.
I was a bit nervous of what I'd need to do in a knight & pawns v pawns endgame, but needn't have worried.
This weekend I played in the minor section of the Nottingham Congress. It was five rounds of 36 moves in 90mins plus 15mins to finish. I ended up with two wins and three losses, was hoping for a little bit more, but judging against my opponents grades I did better than would be expected.
I enjoyed the experience, they had to stop any more entries due to so many people entering, about 150. Round 1 I played against David Scorer, graded 92. I only lasted 23 moves.
[Event "Nottinghamshire Congress Minor 2008"] [Date "2008.04.19"] [Round "1"] [White "David Scorer"] [Black "Dean Madden"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "E67"]
I could have hung on a bit longer if I'd played 21...Qe7 below.
Round two I played young Tobias Stables. Although he resigned after 11 moves, he had me worried early on after playing a move I hadn't seen before against the Fried Liver. [Event "Nottinghamshire Congress Minor"] [Date "2008.04.19"] [Round "2"] [White "Dean Madden"] [Black "Tobias Stables"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C57"]
When he played 4...Bc5 (below), I had to do a lot of thinking as to whether to still play Nxf7 as I expected Bxf2+ afterwards which would lead to a wild game.
I rightly decided to play the move, and he indeed sacrificed his bishop. His big mistake was playing 9...Bg4 below, it's easy to overlook that the knight on e4 is no longer protected.
Round 3 I played Gary Hopkinson, graded 83.
[Event "Nottingham Congress 2008 Minor section"] [Date "2008.04.19"] [Round "3"] [White "Gary Hopkinson"] [Black "Dean Madden"] [Result "1-0"]
He played the Trompowsky against my Kings Indian, something I remembered reading about but what I'd totally forgotten how to play against. I made it up and didn't do too bad in the opening. But by move 20 he'd skewered my queen against a rook and I resigned shortly after as the position was a mess.
Round 5 I had a good win against Dorothy Blampied, graded 57. I was very pleased with the Kings Indian Attack working for once like I intend it to. I had loads of pressure kingside and was able to get a few pawns advantage and convert it to a win.
Round 6 I lost to junior Robert Bowler, who plays very fast but very well, graded 83. I tried the same thing as in the previous game, but the board got very tight and locked up. In the late middle game he played much better, and I couldn't do anything to stop him breaking through.
