Leek Congress

Round one of the Leek congress last night was against Nicholas McLean, graded 96ECF.

DeanMaddenvNicholasMcLean.pgn


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.

AdamSArshadvDeanMadden.pgn


To be honest he didn't seem to be much interested in playing, not recording his moves, and offering a draw after about 10 moves.

Move 14 I was a Queen up, and just played sensibly until he resigned.

Hopefully I'll have some more interesting games tomorrow!

New season

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.

TedPyevDeanMadden.pgn

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.

BLundering against BLoomes

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.

DeanMaddenvBertLoomes_0.pgn

Peter Brace

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.

DeanMaddenvPeteBrace.pgn


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.

Smashed

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.

IanGregoryvDeanMadden.pgn

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.

Improve your chess

Tom Chivers at Streatham & Brixton Chess Club blog has written a series of great articles documenting how he has improved his chess strength in one season by 23 ECF points after being at the same level for a number of years. Some of it is probably somewhat above my current level, but there are plenty of interesting bits to think about:

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/07/improve-your-chess-i-why-coach-others.html

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/07/improve-your-chess-ii-vice-and-advice.html

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/07/improve-your-chess-iii-simulation-not.html

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/07/improve-your-chess-iv-read-rowson.html

Gary Davison

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.

GaryDavisonvDeanMadden.pgn