It was a first round in the first tournament of the season , because of the problem during registering I was manually paired with my friend rated 1518. We had 6 draws in the past, his rating dropped lately. He played English Opening, I replied with c6. His 15. f3 was slow, I expected e4. His 18. Bh3 looked strange, 18… Ne8 (with the idea of Ne8-Nd6-Nc4) was better than my 18… Rc7.
After his 20. g4 I evaluated the position and decided that knight on f6 and bishop moved to f8 could hold it. So I continued my initiative on the queenside. Instead of his 24. Rc2 computer offers 24. fxe6 Nxb2 25. exf7+ Kf8 26. Qg6 b4 27. Rf2 bxc3 28. Rg2 Ng4 29. Qh7 Bf6 30. Bxg4, with some attack (for the knight for two pawns) with -1.5 estimate.
Then I found 24… e5, I thought it was stopping completely his attack. He had to play 25. dxe5 Nxe5 26. Qd4, still after queens exchange Black was better. After 25. Bc1 his position continued to deteriorate and he resigned after 35. Rxh3.
Rolling Pawns 
September 16, 2018 at 9:00 am
8.a3 If White is going to play this opening system, he should be looking to play a line that tries to “punish” Black for bringing the light-bishop outside the pawn chain. For example, 8.Nh4, or 8.Qb3, or Nb5 after …Bd6 or Bf4, followed by Be5, then after Nxe5, the light diagonal a4-e8 will be weakened again. He let you equalize instead.
16.e3 He should either be playing 16.Qd3 to push e4, or 16.Qd2 with Nc3-d1-f2-d3 eyeing c4/e5/f4 squares, or 16.Nd2 and then e4.
20.g4 In hindsight, he should have played 20.Rb1 here to slow down or discourage your plan. As they say, determine whether you are playing for a win or draw first. He is wrongly playing for a win instead of a draw. Also, it’s bad that he never moved his Rf1, since he doesn’t have the defensive option of Bf1 without that, which is a standard defensive move.
25.Bc1 I think it’s too late for this style of defensive play. 25.dxe5 looks intuitive. Now, he’s just getting crushed, he has no trumps in the position.
I always like these descriptions “He dropped a bishop, so he resigned.” No, he was getting smoked. hehe.
Very nice win, and performance! You were playing much above his level, but it’s still neat to see your winning technique! 😉
September 18, 2018 at 10:57 am
Thank you! I will reply in detail.
I played yesterday with the same master as a week ago.
I had White, he played his usual French. We exchanged queens and I had a good position after the opening, but had a difficulty to find a plan.
He started to attack on the queenside, but as he said “overstretched” at one moment. So I found a nice combination and won a pawn, also it ended his attack. I could force exchange of the rooks giving up the pawn back and ending with a B+N vs. B+N with each of us having 3 pawns on the kingside – completely drawn endgame, where he would agree to a draw. But I decided to try to keep the pawn and play for a win. We exchanged the rooks soon anyway, I had a passed “b” pawn. I am not sure if I played the exact moves, but he was able to move his king quickly and win that pawn, only my bishop defended it. At that moment I decided that I can get advantage if I will exchange my bishop for his knight and will transfer into a pawn endgame.
But I didn’t calculate it properly having not much time left and the pawn endgame was drawn at that moment. But then I made a mistake, I think moving my king and he was able to force a win. He was even apologetic and repeated many times, that it was a draw.
September 18, 2018 at 1:20 pm
Wow. That must have been a great game.
I, too, would want to play on for any winning chances over taking a draw. King and pawn endings are hard to figure out in time-pressure, and I think Experts and Masters tend to do better at this sort of thing, they know how and when to triangulate, count pawn-races, etc.
He probably also benefited by there being a time-scramble, as Experts and Masters usually do calculate quicker than Class players when they do calculate, or the position requires it. If he is trained to calculate faster/deeper in a neutral position, then that can be the difference in time-pressure. That’s mostly what Fischer did, calculate faster/deeper than his opponents. I would say that Fischer is the greatest chess player ever to have the least astonishing moves/wins.
I guess you are playing in a higher section then on Mondays(?) It’s got to be a confidence boost that you played so well! 🙂
I’m aiming to play tonight, round 3 with 1 point bye, even though I will probably be tired by then.
September 19, 2018 at 9:08 am
I played Dean last night, who may be near his 1400 floor, but beat Mike 1600 the weak before. So, I’m joining this tournament in round 3.
We play the same ole Scotch Gambit, as always, where I have Black, whipping out the opening moves..
In the middlegame, he trades dark-bishops, fixing my pawn chain, and all seems well for a moment, but then after about a half-hour think I decided that …g6 is forced, to stop his attack. Somehow, he soon has 1 hr 20 min. to my 20 min.
Instead of possibly playing Rg1, and attacking kingside, he sort of just centralizes in the center, with prophylactic play. I’m looking at some queen forays, but still not sure whether I can afford to detach my pieces from the defense of my king.
So, I decide to sac a pawn for some initiative. Bad decision, since I didn’t see ahead of time that he has Rf3-a3, defending his a4 pawn. I try to use my positional trumps and possibly win a pawn back, but he sacs the exchange for another pawn, which I completely didn’t consider. Not sure what to make of this, it slowly dawns on me that he is probably just winning
He can push pawns down the center of the board, and my king is vulnerable. I move my queen back defensively, and prepare to possibly hunch-down on the position until I can find a plan, but he can probably just grab the c-file, etc, and defend the pawn with his knight, or pawn-storm, White has lots of possibilities.
The, inexplicably, in trying to find a win(?), he opens the h-file where his king lay. I am prepared to exchange rooks there, looking for some sort of relief. He misses a pin of his knight against his queen. Somehow, it looks doubtful that Black could be winning, but sometimes the one who has the better sense of these things comes out on top.
He spends quite a bit of time to find a defense, but there is none, and so hangs his queen. He resigns, and I show him that it was lost even if he had played Qd3 to get his queen out of the pin, then I have Qh8+, Rh7+, followed by Rh6+, winning the queen. I had 2 1/2 minutes left, it was a tense battle.
I’ll post the game in a while, after I’ve analyzed it.
September 19, 2018 at 6:53 pm
I agree about him not trying to use Bf5.
Yes, g4 was not right, Rb1 or Rd1 recommended by computer.
Right, rook on f1 never moved.
Thank you again!
September 19, 2018 at 8:13 pm
Your welcome! 🙂
I have my game up, although I’m still adding comments to it.
September 20, 2018 at 2:40 pm
Your game looks like a roller coaster 🙂 , will check.
September 20, 2018 at 5:05 pm
Thank you!
I added more analysis to it. A crazy game, considering our rating differences, yes! 🙂
September 21, 2018 at 1:08 pm
I was in the club yesterday, discussed with that master how he missed a combination with the same Nxe6, but different motif, earlier and much stronger, I didn’t see it. He called it a blunder.
Then I received my award for winning summer’s tournament (middle section), “Schliemann defense” by Shamkovich and Schiller (my choice out of 100 titles) and $10 Tim Horton card, best prize in 11 years of playing chess in Canada. 🙂
It was 2nd round, I got a 1489 rated boy, we played Ruy Lopez, he chose Bc5 variation. He then got my Spanish bishop leaving his e5 pawn en prise, not sure what it was, blunder or sacrifice. He got some pressure for that, I was able to neutralize it.
Then we ended up in a queen endgame, where I missed a chance to exchange queens. Suddenly he himself exchanged the queens, leaving me with a spare central pawn in a pawn endgame. The rest was technique, ironically it reminded me the previous game.
September 21, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Nice! 🙂
You should try out the Schliemann some time, you will probably do well if you face some of the tricky lines, after reading that. But yeah, find the main line first in that book (main line is almost always “good” for Black because White usually loses their way first. That said, you know how that goes, players specialize by declining, and then being aggressive against it later. d4, timed right, is one of the gotchas for Black.
That’s nice that you won your game!
They have much better prizes in Colorado than $10 for first, I’ve never heard of such a low place prize, but the recognition is what counts. 😉
…Bc5 is a weird variation in the Spanish in the first few moves, how to protect the e5 pawn, and what to do as Black against c3 and d4, I always forget.