Despite of the bad weather – weakened hurricane that came to Ontario, there were pretty many people at the club. I had Black and played Queen’s Indian, here is the game. I need to study better this opening and stop hesitating to play Bb4 instead of Be7, which takes I think a good square from my queen. There were nothing special in the opening besides my opponent spending enormous time on each move starting from move 15.
The time difference was getting bigger and bigger and frankly I thought that the game is almost over, not by time, but just because of the unavoidable mistake in the time trouble. But 24. Be4 was the first sign that it will not go so easy. I had to calculate quite a lot. Then he finally made that mistake allowing me to win his two rooks for the queen.
The game was here for taking. The funny thing is that I saw Rd2 after his Qg3 and that I can take on g2, but thought that I give back my 2 rooks, not realizing that in the pawn endgame I will have more pawns, i.e. win. Then when his remaining time reached 5 minutes he started to play very fast and never went below 6 minutes (we had 30 seconds increment). We kind of exchanged roles, with him playing fast and well and me – slow and not so well. Still I missed another clear win after 41. Qg5 and then started to play simply bad losing material.
Definitely his revival affected me, I had not much more time than him anymore and also played mostly on increment. Eventually I lost 2 pawns and got my rook out of play. I decided to give up an exchange thinking that maybe I’ll have chances with my rook and bishop against his queen. Luckily I managed to exchange queenside pawns and suddenly he offered a draw, saying that he thinks I can build a fortress.
Shootout confirmed that, 2 games finished in a draw.
October 31, 2012 at 4:47 am
It may be equal at the end, but I did laugh at how he ended the game by offering you a draw – certainly, I feel that White should play on in that position.
I admire your decision/chutzpah to sac queen for rooks. It was the right decision, but I may not have been so bold as to play it. However, I easily saw your winning move of sacking the exchange and then Rxg2+, winning.
It seems you never miss a concrete threat. Well done!
You are the moral victor of this game, playing with the Black pieces, and a bit unsurely with handling the opening.
8…exd5 is a book move, albeit a bit ugly and never really fun to see as Black.
I would keep the tension longer with 11…Rc8 instead of ..NxNc3, and if 12.Qa4, then ..Bc6, 13.Qa6 Ra7 with idea of 14..Qc8 – keeping the tension while equalising.
12.bxc is much stronger, IMHO
He doesn’t seem to have been in great form, else Qf2 to prep that Be4 should have been not too difficult to spot.
17…a6?! Black already has a clear edge with 17…Nd5, which can threaten ..h6 with ..Bg5 or ..Bb4 – either way, thematic moves.
Nevertheless, you drew this game by being the stronger technical player, which seems a little strange as the game went, he simply made a lot of weak moves and I suspect knew the opening even less than you did. Still, it was sort of a high-class game just because it went on so long.
I like this game of Paul’s, he’s an Expert at our club.
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=71596
I like how he knows when to attack, when to defend, how and when to keep a position closed and apply tension to a closed position as Black, and then outplay his 1900+ opponent in the technical phase. Paul beats me routinely when I make one small positional error/miscalculation. He doesn’t play flashy so much as _accurate_ chess in technical positions.
October 31, 2012 at 2:32 pm
I need to study …d4 responses, period, they are the worst/weakest part of my game.
I’ve given up thinking people are going to blunder in their time-pressure. Actually, they blunder in _my_ time-pressure. Even last night, half the game played in time-pressure, against a blitz-player no less. What the blitz players often don’t seem to know is that blitz is not quite real chess.
That queen for rook trade was the most awesome part of the game, I did not see that coming, thanks for playing it and showing me!
On move 35, after I looked at it for a few minutes I saw the fantasy position where if you have rook on d5 and e4, White cannot prevent the loss of the e-pawn, but then I missed the starting move. I figured on Rd8-d5 at once, but Black must first play ..Rd8-d3 to tease the bishop from e3, and then you win either the e-pawn or b-pawn.
Man, this game was like a tactics puzzle waiting to happen.
hehe.
When you miss one puzzle, the next puzzle is a bit harder. For example, the winning move 38 continuation is brilliant and I had difficulty finding this one at first. 38..Rc1, 39.Qd2 (Fritz is trying somehow to stop you from playing 39…Re1 right away, and it’s a zugzwang thing). 39..Rc2 Rd3! (not only putting the question to the bishop, but the rooks will double in some lines, are threatening everything, and squeezing out White’s play at the same time). Another likely game continuation which Fritz avoids because sees it is 40.Bc3, and then Black is basically either mating or winning the endgame after ..Re2, so Black has two ways to win this position. Either 40..Re2, 41.Qf1 Re4 winning either the h4 pawn or b2 pawn, or Black can go for the even prettier zugzwang line of 40..Bf5! (White has no real moves) if 41.Qf1 right away then 41…Rh3+! 42.Kg1 Rg3 hitting g2 is winning, not even bothering to win the h4 pawn. So 41.Kg1 is the only move, then 41..Re2, 42.Qf1 Re4, 43.g3 Rg4 winning either the g3 or b2 pawn is also curtains.
Yes, I am analyzing these tactics without an engine because, thank G%d, for once I am not limited to spending 90 minutes on an entire game when I look at a position such as these.
After looking at all that I didn’t even want to try to see what your move should have been on move 39, but as soon as I see 39…b4 I see the point of it, it’s instantly winning. White’s position is like a statue just waiting to be chopped down. The pin on White’s queen is just as elementary as it is sad, White has no counterplay, and all of Black’s material is protected. If 39..b4, 40. Bc5, then ..Rxb2 also still wins the pawn.
I looked for the blunder after 41. Qg5. What’s weird is that I saw the idea of winning the
October 31, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I just posted that comment, and meant to delete that last sentence, it was from a while back.
So after looking at all of those over moves, I saw 41..b4 right away. I didn’t see that the pawn on h5 was dropping but I had seen that it was a meaningless pawn, worth trading for a tempo. Fritz gives away his bishop on b4 because it sees …Rxb2, …Be4, …Rxg2 coming.
I missed a lot of shots in my game as well, still haven’t looked for them yet, but I had under a minute remaining. Your 30 second increment is not enough, so maybe you were low on time. I don’t know how much time you had left, but if you have half an hour or so left, you should probably find these shots and win your game.
October 31, 2012 at 4:36 pm
BTW, I missed more tactics in my games than you did in yours, your’s were just more of the decisive variety; i.e., Black to play and win. Mine were more of a technical nature; i.e., using tactics to play for the privilege of using yet even more tactics to maintain a +- advantage.
Both of our games exposed the weakpoints necessary for us to learn from!
As you can see, openings are way down on the list on where we need to improve (even though during the game the opening feels like almost everything).
October 31, 2012 at 10:32 pm
Thanks. I like more 8… Nxd5, since it leaves the diagonal open. Yeah, I regretted playing 17… a6 and thought about Nd5.
The lines after move 38 are strong, just a confirmation that 2 rooks are stronger than queen.
I was low on time, in the end I had something like 8 minutes vs. his 7.
Can you believe it, having at some point almost an hour more?
November 1, 2012 at 2:49 am
That’s what happened to me against Mark as well, but now I figure that it is time-invested in the position. For example, they are out of time and make more superficial moves, but your superficiality of moves shouldn’t start until under 5 minutes – as a rule of thumb, anyway. So, what I am saying is that I see that as a good thing, as long as time on the clock is coverted into advantage on the board, then having 2 minutes to their 1 in a dead-won position would be the desired outcome.
Posted my game from tonight.
My buddy Alex had a winning position against Paul A., the Expert, but couldn’t slow his play down and blundered a piece in the endgame. He needed to move Re7 and played Re8 instead, like a finger-fehler blunder. He couldn’t sit at the board and analyze, kept wanting to leave the board to talk with people, it was tragic, he was too nervous.
November 1, 2012 at 2:58 am
Oh yeah, Alex had 50 minutes on his clock when he blundered his bishop in a bishop and rook vs. rook endgame, dead won position.
November 27, 2012 at 3:17 pm
How did your game go, last night?
December 4, 2012 at 3:14 pm
So how’d you do on Monday?
December 6, 2012 at 4:03 am
RollingPawns, I hope that you and your mom are doing alright – I understand that chess isn’t such a big priority, all things considered. I played tonight, posted it.
December 19, 2012 at 6:46 pm
No more blogging?
I replied back to your one reply last week on my blog.
January 15, 2013 at 7:22 pm
So, how did it go last night? Did you play?
February 26, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Sorry, I missed your comment.
I couldn’t play on Thursday, have to play yet one game on Thursdays.
March 12, 2013 at 2:44 pm
RollingPawns, I replied to your comment on my blog.
This blog could use a new post.