What happed on Sunday in my regular G/90 game reminded me the song “All screwed up” by my favorite AC/DC -
“… you’re out of luck
Yes you are
It’s all screwed up
All screwed up”.
I was 10 minutes late and the boy was waiting for me. Suddenly I see these 10 minutes on my clock. Formally we begin at 1pm, but usually only 1, max 2 games begin right away. I myself wait at least 10-15 minutes before starting the clock, others the same. It kind of ticked me off, since the format is G/90.
How will I deal with Botvinnik rule? I hurried to get on time and now this – I felt like when you are late, run and then you can’t catch your breath. The same happened with my concentration and it was so until end of the game.
Anyway, I am White, Caro-Kann – first time OTB.
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ exf6 – new line for me, usually (online) I get 4. … Bf5.
6. Nf3 Bd6 7. Be2 O-O 8. O-O Bf5 9. b3 Qc7
10. Bb2 Nd7 11. Re1 Rfe8 12. g3 c5 – g3 played against Bf4
13. Qd2 Rac8 14. c4 Bh3 15. d5 – I thought I am better after that, Crafty – 0.43.
15. … Ne5 16. Nxe5 Bxe5 17. Bxe5 fxe5 18. Bd3 f5 19. f3 – Crafty – 0.98
19. … Qe7 20. Re2 Qf6 21. Rae1 Re7 22. Re3 Qg5 23. Qf2 f4
24. R3e2 fxg3 25. Qxg3 Qxg3+ 26. hxg3 - I thought Black’s fxg3 was a mistake, Crafty agrees – 1.72
26. … Rf8 27. Be4 Bf5 28. Kg2 Bxe4 29. Rxe4 Ref7 30. R1e3
30. … Re7 31. Rxe5 Rxe5 32. Rxe5 Kf7 33. f4 Re8 34. Rxe8 Kxe8 – here I decided that the game is won
35. Kf3 Ke7 36. g4 Kd6 37. g5 b5 38. Kg4 b4 39. f5?? – if the guy with whom I played yesterday night lightning games 2/1 could see it, he would change his mind. After winning 5 out of 6 games (and we played before ~ two dozen with about 50/50 result) I suddenly read a chat message – “you are computer”. I laugh, feel flattered and send a message – “I am not”, but then see that I am censored.
39. … Ke5! The combination of non-concentration and being sure that protected passed pawn guarantees me a win brings me here
40. g6 h6 ?? – Black should play hxg6 with a draw – Crafty – 0.43.
So I decide that I am losing material and it’s a draw, since black king should guard “d” pawn. The boy looks at me at the same moment and says – “Draw?”. I agree. He says – “Now, as we agreed to a draw, I’ll show how White wins here” and moves “d” pawn –
41. d6! Kxd6 42. f6! – and White gets a queen. Pawn breakthrough, looks familiar 
.
I am stunned. Then he asks me about my rating and tells me his – 280 lower than mine. The whole evening I was very upset, didn’t have a time to look at it, next morning I look - and feel better. Crafty says, that if I don’t play 41. d6 ( which I didn’t see), all other moves cause losing both “h” and “g” pawns and it’s not a draw, it’s a win for Black, at least estimate was – -3.
May 5, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Alright, analysis-time (I realize you spent a lot of time creating this post).
First off, I win like 19/20 times as White in this Nxf variation (just made that up, but I sorta own it as White, not because I have a great plan, but just look at it! hehe)
I’m guessing I know why you weren’t your usual self in this game, and part of the answer is I think he blitzed you, and the other part is you were more focused on (beating) him than on (beating) the position.
d5 looks like one of those blunders where Crafty might not say it, but it’s more a case of self-evident – you just made his e5 square fan-fing-tabulous (he’s got five defenders of e5, the diagonal is now good, knight, etc, while your bishop becomes bad). Rd1 is indicated, as they say. I think you saw him go Bh3 and were just thinking of crossing him up somehow, and probably threw it out there, still not “in the game” yet, mentally.
16…Bxe5 is cracked. He just removed his own defender of d6, should play exN with a possible f6, not f5 so soon. Really, all he did was clog up e5 for himself prematurely. I would try to exchange off some a-pawns as black, minimize White’s Qside pawn majority a little before thinking about risking it all Kside.
20. Re2(?) Without putting any tough analysis into it, I have to wonder why not throw out Bf1 now and exchange. He’s the one that hs to prove he hasn’t screwed himself with his advanced pawns like that.
He had to play f4 to defend his e5 pawn, but instead of fxg, Rc8-d8-d6-g6, then perhaps Qf6 and then maybe he can play fxg.
24. Re2. You could have even messed with him a bit here, if you wanted to with Re4. He plays Bf4 and you have Rxe. You have the passed pawn and even a diagonal out for your bishop, he has to have some mating threat to stay alive, and must blockade your passed d-pawn.
Move 36, just keep moving your king, don’t touch your pawns. It’s still technique, blitz at this point.
Once you got to move 40, either one of you may have played better than me, unless I used _lots_ of time to verify all “50″ loose-ends. The thing about the endgame is not simply that it helps greatly to have experience, but that you need to save just as much time for it as you would a middle-game move where the game is not in doubt, if in fact you allow yourself to drift into a position as tough as the one that you allowed.
With this G/90 format, I sense you survive it with your thoughtful game, by skimping on saving time for the endgame. I do that too, but rely heavily on experience, and I’m just a slow player. hehe.
Still a great result to escape such a tough game with a draw, considering you made it tough at the end when it shouldn’t have been.
May 5, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Anyway, that’s just my take on it RP, giving you another perspective. For all I know d5 was double-exclam for White. hehe.
May 5, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Here’s a trick I like to pull for lack of nothing better
15 d5 f5 (threatening ..f4)
16 Qg5 Ne5
17 NxN BxN (say)
18 BxB QxB
and Black has boxed out White’s Queen from the center, where the passed pawn is, etc.
May 5, 2009 at 11:30 pm
36. Ke4 Kf6
37. g4
38. f5
And once Black (and White) have exhausted all pawn moves, Black’s only king move will be back, or losing to the side (White can shuffle side to side), White’s king then steps in for the win.
May 6, 2009 at 4:01 am
Always try to relax before starting a game of chess! Other emotions only hamper your thoughtproces. So maybe this ‘correct start of the game at 1pm’ has helped your opponent a bit to get a draw. The smartass!
Btw, lets hope for your sake that FIDE doesn’t implement the rule that if you are not on time (starting hour) at your board then you lose game by forfait. At the latest Olympiade some games were lost due to that rule.
May 6, 2009 at 1:45 pm
chesstiger – good advice about relaxing. I remembered that when I come 10-15 minutes earlier, help move/set the tables, talk – it gets me in a good state when the game starts. Yeah, that boy as we say in Russian – “is no gift”. He looked like 9-10 year old, that misled me, but he is actually grade 7, so 13 year old. His draw offer was tricky too, but he punished himself.
Regarding rule change – it’s too harsh, I agree. of course, there are cameras, etc. but still… For us, I think the old rule (1 hour) is fine.
May 6, 2009 at 2:25 pm
linuxguy – thanks for your analysis. Yeah, I see your point about e5 square, though maybe d5 is double-edged because as soon as he played not the best moves, d5 pawn became my advantage.
Right, 16. … Bxe5 is not good, his bishop was better than mine.
I wasn’t afraid of his pawns advance, and my white-colored bishop wasn’t good, so, yes, Bf1 deserves attention.
I don’t have a lot of experience in the endgame and try to have 30 minutes for it. I don’t save on it since missing a fork with 90 seconds left
.
I try to follow Botvinnik, so ~20 minutes for the first 15 moves, it gives me 40 minutes for the middlegame – I think, it’s enough.
I wasn’t blitzing, I had these 30 minutes before I made that stupid f5 move, can you imagine that?
Again, as you said it’s not being “in the game yet, mentally” and as well just knowing one drawn position with protected pawn from Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual (which I know now) would make me much more careful with moving pawns along the board. I learned ( the hard way) not to move my passed pawn without enough protection, now another lesson.
May 6, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I would only offer a draw when I saw a win for my opponent if he were in serious time-trouble, like >5 minutes.
If you had 15-20 minutes, for example, and he offered you a draw, knowing you had a direct win, then I personally think that is a-holish behavior on the part of the kid, not genteel in any case, and unsportsmanlike.
Mentally, I am never really into that first-game for the first 10-15 minutes.
I like the fact that you play aggressive, uncompromising chess. It’s cool that Chesstiger does also, and even ChessX tries to follow that style (vs simply making moves and hanging around). So d5 always appeared to have a good side to it, to me was well, because you have the passer in any case.
Against his rating it was a good choice because he was in over his head with d5.
I’m amazed you almost had the win with g6!! If you had 15 minutes left, then I feel his draw offer was unsportsmanlike – you earned that time, you deserved to use every second of it.
The odd thing about my game is I try to play the first 10 moves in 10 minutes, maybe it’s the “Mednis rule” – 10 to 15 minutes max for the first 10 moves. It’s weird the WGMs can spend a lot of time during those moves and then blitz later (I don’t recommend that), and they do it in dumb@ss simple opening variations, too. Anyway, I seem to spend forever on moves 13 to 30.
The rule of thumb may now be more like this – if your opponent is playing run-and-hide catch-me-if-you-can chess, you will need to save some extra time as they keep delaying the moment of your deathblow strike upon them. Some people are good at running! Run away! Run away!
If they don’t challenge you with sharp play, then the drama finale gets put off, and the nervous exhaustion begins to mount/wear, waiting and waiting for the chance to deliver a hammer-blow, then fatigue and time-trouble occur simultaneously, and you can be in danger of losing!
May 6, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Like if you had spent 5+ minutes on the move, I might say “Hey, just to let you know, if you want the draw, I’ll take it.” But I won’t be like “Draw?!” sticking my hand out and all that from a losing position.
May 7, 2009 at 11:09 am
linuxgiy – thanks for appreciating my style. I belong to the old Soviet school and as Encyclopedia Britannica says: “The Soviets were distinguished by the high priority they placed on gaining the initiative”.
I don’t get to play many long time control games like 30/90, SD/1, but I understand your point about “grinding”. I had one such long game where I sacrificed exchange (Crafty found it correct), didn’t find the winning move, spend too much time, finally got material back with a gain, but lost won rook endgame due to the time trouble. I have to admit he defended like hell.
I agree that that draw offer was unsportsmanlike, same as running the clock. The worst case happened with me was also in king pawn endgame, when I played my first rated tourney in Canada, active, 30/SD. You can imagine, I woke up at 5:30am, couldn’t sleep anymore, was so excited and nervous. I played OK and had 2 out of 4, then the last game, which I played well, went into king pawn one with a few minutes left. I was moving my king from kingside to queenside, keeping opposition and it looked like I get to the pawns first. Suddenly I find myself in losing position, his king gets to pawns. I resign, then 2 guys standing nearby laugh and say that my opponent made an illegal move at some point with his king. The guy is smiling, there is no record of the moves, it was already blitz. I get 2 out of 5, so upset that I don’t enroll into Canadian Chess Federation as I planned before, just pay tournament fee. I come home, look at the last recorded position, try to restore the moves and the only way that I could lose is really if he makes an illegal move, making his king touch mine and forcing it away. In a blitz rush I didn’t notice that.
May 8, 2009 at 11:46 pm
In ‘93 I was reading ‘Modern Chess Opening Theory’, by Suetin, right after I finished ‘My System’ by Nimzovich. The real stuff nowdays is strange and perhaps even bad, but with the purpose of leaving the beaten path and taking up the fight there, hopefully prepared.
Most of my wins are grinds, but they still take enough energy to get there quickly (saves on mental energy). Tiredness will almost surely blunder back.
The illegal move situation is nightmare scenario, could happen yes. I feel my goal at my next tournament should not be to win, but to make sure I leave a nice looking scoresheet for once.
This is hard particularly because lately I scratch out so many moves I was about to play. In fact, for most of my tournament life, I didn’t write down the moves first, and that is probably why my rating never improved!
May 9, 2009 at 12:06 am
The tournament tomorrow is G/60 3 rounds, then G/75 4th round, so I’m not planning on going, because my rating will most likely take a blow at those time controls.
May 9, 2009 at 12:46 pm
“nice looking scoresheet” is good, I found that sometimes I miss the move or wrote not correct one. By the way, you could write down your move first years ago, but not now, the rule says you should move first.
I won’t be sure too about G/60, result as well as how useful it is, from the other point of view it’s still OTB and nothing can replace that practice.
May 9, 2009 at 1:15 pm
“the rule says you should move first.”
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/6270/325/
The 2 reasons given for it are dumb.
I first started to do it after someone told me that Tal wrote down his move first. There is one odd advantage to it that you wouldn’t first think of.
If you write down your initial move that you intuitively want to play or first agree on, it serves as a record. Let’s say you think for 10 minutes, take a break, get disrupted, but most often get tired. You can go back, look at your scoresheet and see which move you really wanted to whip-out there, and originally felt convinced about.
It also curves impulsiveness, as Weeramantry said, which is a big deal if you are tired, especially, cuts down on just making a move while ignoring something obvious.
I don’t have much respect for FIDE anymore, they can simply do whatever. But I do have respect for USCF, so I may try and do that in my next tournament and try to make a clean scoresheet.
G/60 simply won’t be useful to me, or at least I know G/30 certainly wouldn’t. I want to start considering more moves, not playing to the rythm of the clock, and saying “Oh well, nice 5 move combo, sorry I don’t have time for that sort of thing myself, better for me to play hide and seek.”
May 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm
See, I had already forgotten my question, should have written it down first.
From the linked article above:
“Kuhns notes that FIDE changed its rules following, “numerous complaints of players recording a move, crossing it off, recording a second move, crossing it off, etc.””
Why did they complain about this?
May 9, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I understand your reasons, still using Monroi and possible mess in the scoresheet remain the arguments against writing first.
I agree about time, I think G/90 is a minimum guaranteeing some quality, even that sometimes …