It was a first round of the new tournament in Monday’s club and I got again the master I played a week before. I had White, he played his usual French, this time it was Tarrasch, open variation. Later I found that we played it 3 years ago and had a draw.
We followed the book, his 13… b5 was a novelty. Then on a move 15 he made a serious mistake, he even later called it a blunder. It was a combination – 16. Nxe6 fxe6 17. Rxe6, winning 2 pawns. I swear to god that not once during the game I considered sacrifice on e6, before and after a castle, game will prove that. But it was always taking with one light piece on e6, then with another, never with a rook.
As I remember at that moment I didn’t see how I can improve the position of my pieces, so played h3. He then started to press on the queenside, but by his own expression “overstretched”. After playing 22. Nd4 I suddenly saw that the sacrifice on e6 is finally possible and played it. He couldn’t take my knight because of the weak 8th horizontal as well as the threat of Bd6+.
So I got an extra pawn. Computer thinks that I had to keep my rook. The exchange on e7 was a mistake, after 35. b4 I would have 0.8 advantage. So he got his pawn back, I thought that in the pawn endgame I would have some advantage, so exchanged the light pieces. Soon I realized that I am not winning this game. I was already in the time trouble as well as him.
There was a clear draw after 49. Ke3 Ke5 50. f4 Kd5. I played 49. Kg3, it was OK too, because after 49… Ke4 50. f3+ Ke3 I had 51. Kg2. But I think I didn’t see Kg2 and suddenly played impulsive g5. He didn’t take it as I expected, but just calmly played 50… f5. Then I realized that I am lost. I was upset of course and he was even apologetic saying that it was a draw.
September 23, 2018 at 2:37 am
It’s funny, I feel you are just as much an Expert as he is a Master, except that there is no Expert title, only an Expert rating (at least here in USA, and I guess in Canada, too), which I find appalling, actually.
That is tragic that you lost, as I feel that other than at the very end, it seemed he could only draw you at best, if he’s lucky, the way he played. An unexpected loss, for sure, and otherwise I’d say you deserve some of his rating points. You generally do well against higher-rated players, because your entire game is generally intact. For you to make that error at the end, I can feel confident that you were probably both moving quickly.
16.h3 I followed your moves up to move 13. Bf4, when I wasn’t sure what to choose between Bf4, Bg5, c3, or h3. I was looking at c3 just as much. I did realize that move 16 was the critical position where White has to at least look for a way to prove Black’s opening wrong.
At first I I wanted to play 16.Nf5 Bc5, then Nd6 or Bd6, but at best it seems White is forcing Black to eventually play …Bd5, as in for example 17.Bd6 BxB, 18.NxBd7 Bd5, 19.BxB NxB, 20.c4 White is better, but the position is definitely not won.
Then I looked at sacs on e6. 16.Nxe6 fxe6, 17.Bxe6+ Kh8 seemed like nothing, of course I missed 18.Rxe6 there, which flat out wins, since …Rf7, 19.RxB wins the piece. I also looked at 16.Rxe6 fxe6, 17.Nxe6 Kh8, 18.Nc7 Rae8, 19.NxR RxN, but again this is nothing. So, I figured there was something there but missed it.
The reason why one has to look at sacking on e6 is because the …Bb7 and …Be7 pieces are both en-prise, and the …b5 move, pawn formation on the queenside, looks ridiculous here, like a huge waste of time. His stuff is hanging, and any GM would have put him down instantly like a stray rat. lol. But, I get it, we both trusted him more than this, and I am only saying this now, but the whole problem with a …Bb7 and …Be7 setup like that in even say the C3 sicilian, is that Black has two pieces hanging at the same time, so have to look for combos to try and make something work, particularly right after castling.
17.Nf3 I like c3 here, still eying e6, giving an escape for the bishop to c2, and generally frustrating Black.
20.RxR I was surprised to see this, since I figured you play Nf3 to go Ne5, and then you could have Nxf7 KxN, Bxe6+ and BxRc8 type of sac, or play Nd4 hitting b5.
23.Nxe6! . I wanted to play 23.axb instantly here, so I didn’t see your Nxe6 sac idea. Look at this move-order, (I didn’t see his …Bf6 reply, but it’s just a positional reaction to trade a-pawns first)…axb, 24.Nxe6 Bf6, 25.Be5 BxB, 26.RxB bxc3, 27.bxc3 Rxc3, 28.Rb4, winning.
24…g6?! Too slow. IMO, he should take on c3 first, for example, 24…bxc, 25.bxc Nd5, 26.c4 BxNd4, 27.cxNd5, or no 26…Nc3 now the Nd4 is hanging, Black could play …Ne2+ if the rook moves off the e-file, etc.
26.Nb5! Nice, I didn’t see this.
33.Nc7 So far, I saw all of your moves from move 27. Here, I would want to play 33. Be5 to cut off his knight. If he plays f6, that will be a permanent retreat hole on e6 for your knight.
35.NxBe7 This was my first instinct too, but I realized that after 35.b4, he’s stuck for moves. If anything, he may draw because he can get his king to the pawn in time without you winning say the h7 pawn in return. I’m sure it’s a combination of the clock and position that lead you to this move, you are trying too hard “to make sure”, in time-pressure.
41.BxNb4 With a second time-control, you could stretch this ending out, but as it is it was it was smart to reduce all the knight-fork calculation in time-pressure.
49. Kg3 I played your other moves, too, but here would have chosen 49.Ke3. It’s still a draw, though.
50.g5?? Here, the only real move to consider is 50.Kg2, which puts his king in opposition, but still for some reason I felt I had to calculate it out. 50.Kg2 (…g5, 51.Kg3 is a draw) f5, 51.gxf gxf, and now the great thing is that you can lose the last pawn and still draw. For example 52.f4! (…Ke3, 53.Kg3) Kxf4, 53.Kf2 Ke4, 54.Ke2 f4, 55.Kf2 f3, 56.Kf1 Ke3, 57.Ke1 f2, 58.Kf1 Kf3 stalemate.
52…f4! I didn’t see this move coming either, but it ends the game right away.
I feel like you got robbed at the very end, but that’s how it goes these days with no extra time-control for endgames. Also, it helps to play in the day or early evening in these situations. To be playing this pawn endgame after, say, 8pm in the evening, the body doesn’t have as much wherewithal to find defensive resources, it’s like the same level of nervous energy isn’t there. I know my body is like “be gettin’ too old for this crap” kind of feeling. 😉 I figured out that pawn-sac endgame once during an afternoon game with Imre, for example, so it’s something I’m already aware of.
You played a really good game, you were the one with the pawn-up endgame trying to convert to a win, against a Master or rated Expert, that’s as much as we usually hope for and they are just as often draws, it’s only a bummer that such a position could turn into a loss. I had LM Brian Wall once chide me after a loss where I was up a pawn, “It’s physically impossible to lose from that position”, and he pointed to the trash-can, as in that’s where I could put my score-sheet. A bit ruthless, but his suggestion was that that was a game I just needed to forget. This is that sort of game, last possible chance to win the game is where he found it.
All I can say is that If you play enough high-rated players, their endgame theatrics will cease to move you after a while. If they were so good a chess player, they should have been beating you at some point in the middlegame! 😉
September 24, 2018 at 9:27 am
Thank you for your great comments, will answer later.
I will probably have a 2.5 weeks break from tournaments, as my mom is now with me and I have to take care of her in the evenings. Also there will be Thanksgiving on Monday, October 8.
I will try to do some opening/middlegame preparation, definitely want to study Schliemann defense. Recently in online game after 4. d4 I could get White into a position just down the pawn:
1. e4 e5 1. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. d4 fxe4 5. Nxe5 Nxe5 6. dxe5 c6 7. Bc4 and I had to play Qa5 of course, not d5 right away.
September 25, 2018 at 3:16 pm
Great point, 5.Nxe5 is a mistake, they have to play 5.Bxc6 first.
Let me give you a little bit of prep for the critical line, which is
1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 Nc6, 3.Bb5 f5, 4.Nc3 fxe4, 5.Nxe4 d5, 6.Ne5 dxNe4. Here, if White has never faced this line before, they will probably go for 7.Qh5, which is not so good, but definitely does look good! It’s slightly better for Black.
Continuing on 7.NxNc6 (best) Qg5 (queen is under attack), 8.Qe2 (the most likely move, also the line, and they will probably have burned lots of time getting to this position. Good chance they blunder here). …Nf6 8.f4 (it’s almost certain they won’t figure out to play this move their first time through) Qxf4 (computer likes Qh5, but this move is more challenging). 9.Nxa7+ (It’s more than likely, particularly for those below Class A, that they will chose to play 9.d4? hitting your queen, when the position is close to equal after 9…Qd6) …Bd7, 10.BxB+ KxB, 11.Qb5+ (again, it’s just as likely they decided to save their knight with 11.Nb5? when it’s equal again, or Black slightly better) Ke6, 12.d3 Qd6, or 12….Qe5, 13.QxQ KxQ, 14.d4+! (are they really going to find this? 14.Nb5 exd3 is +=) Kf5, 15.0-0+ Kg6, 16.Nb5 c6, 17.Nc3 White is up a pawn, but Stockfish says it’s closer to half a pawn. This is still a drawable position, IMO (+.75)
Yeah, sometimes when you can’t leave the house to play in a tournament, that’s when you have your best chance to do some work on openings! 😀
That’s great that you’re looking after your mom. I’ve gotten a lot of chess study done now that there haven’t been weekend tournaments for the past few weeks. Enjoy your time at home! 🙂
September 25, 2018 at 8:33 pm
Replying to your game comments:
I considered 16. Nf5, but didn’t think that it would give me advantage.
You are right about both pieces en-prise, maybe if you see that it would be easier to find the combination, not just trying to make work a standard sacrifice on e6.
If 23. axb4 axb4 24. Nxe6 Bf6 25. Be5 then 25… bxc3 26. Bxc3 Bxc3 27. bxc3 Bd5 with about = estimation.
Yeah, probably I got tired in the end and spent all my time in the middlegame.
Yes, theatrics definitely happen, I remember once he offered me a draw in the endgame and then showed me how I could win. I didn’t see it anyway, but it was a lesson. It seems me that in this endgame I wanted to get revenge for that.
September 26, 2018 at 10:19 am
Thanks! Yes, I can see that that line is clearly equal then; so your line was best.
I remember there was a kid, around 10 years ago who did that to you, offered a draw, and then showed you your win after the game. All you could do here is impress him with your drawing technique (and hope that he blunders, which is maybe only 1% chance).
I’ll let you know when my game from last night is up. Plenty of theatrics, yes. hehe
September 26, 2018 at 12:24 pm
I published my game from last night, although I haven’t annotated it yet.
September 26, 2018 at 2:28 pm
I played a couple more games with Schliemann, in one it was again:
1. e4 e5 1. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. d4 fxe4 5. Nxe5 Nxe5 6. dxe5 c6 7. Bc4 and I played Qa5 this time.
In another it was exactly your line:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. Nc3 fxe4 5. Nxe4 d5 6. Nxe5 dxe4 7. Nxc6 Qg5 and he played second line – 8. Nd4 c6 9. Bf1
In any of the 4 games I played I wasn’t worse after the opening, but I wouldn’t risk it yet to play it against same or higher rated opponent.
Interesting that every time after 3… f5 it was quite a pause, it was unexpected, the same could be on the board.
I see that it creates dynamic positions, different from the ones I play usually.
I think you need to change or at least choose different variations in your openings after some time, otherwise the whole game gets boring, opposite to what we are trying to achieve. The thing is we do not make our living by playing chess.
I will look at your game.
September 27, 2018 at 12:56 am
I finally got my game annotated.
I’ll look at those Schliemann lines.
Actually, I was thinking, the biggest worry about playing those sharp lines isn’t that a higher-rated or titled player will figure out what to do OTB (although they probably will figure out a way to crush it in blitz!), it’s that, for example, a titled player will simply have these lines memorized, and will spit them out on demand! 😉
September 27, 2018 at 2:16 am
In the Schliemann, that 4.d4 line does not look best for White. I like how you play it with …c6 and …Qa5, which is best. 4.Nc3 strikes me as the traditional try for a refutation, but a lot of pros will simply play 4.d3, and then they know some line that is good for White (but Black is still surviving).
In that first line it’s interesting that they still don’t know to play BxNc6 before playing Nxe5. In the database, 2 of 3 times they play Nxe5, and 1 of 3 Bxc6, even though the engine is saying Bxc6 is clearly better.
In that second line, well I used to play against this computer, and it always played Schliemann, and my natural reaction was also to play Nc6-d4 instead of Nc6xa7. It’s just as clear that they haven’t gotten the Qe2 move figured out, because they don’t look all the way past the …Qxg2 response (which is losing for Black, but White is not going to know this, unless they either already do, or burn a lot of time on their clock, and right, sometimes …f5 will have already stopped them in their tracks.)
Some players as Black will choose not to play …d5 in that line, 1.e4 e5, 2.Nf3 Nc6, 3.Bb5 f5, 4.Nc3 fxe4, 5.Nxe4, and now instead of 5…d5, they play 5…Nf6 (this looks like a move more common in the Latvian Gambit, which is a sort of sister opening, but is supposedly riskier than this one), when the DB says that 6.NxNf6 is clearly best, ….QxNf6, 7.d4 and here is the weakness of the Schliemann, IMHO, that this move can be played in such a cavalier manner by White. 7…Bd7, 8.dxe dxe, and if you follow this line with an engine, White can gain a positional advantage to a position where it looks like two possible results, win for White or draw, should be a draw, but the pros like playing for two results, for example. But that is more of a pro thing to do, I doubt you will see much of it except from Experts or better.
I think because we are stronger, all of this analysis looks obvious to us now. 🙂 Below Class A, the value of these lines, and their evaluations, will be harder for most players to “grok”, so they will be less likely to have them memorized.
Here is the program I was talking about that played the Schliemann, it was the coolest program ever, played many many games with it! It actually makes me sad that there is no present version. I bought two copies, one to give away, gave it to a friend. It ran on Windows 95, and may have been DOS based. I kept some old DOS machines for a while, so should have kept that program. The chick’s voice was cool, she just sounded hot too, and she would tell you and highlight your mistakes, and it was like a movie watching your pieces move in the post-mortem. At the beginning of the game, the king would walk in and sit down at the table in front of you to play, and that was cool too, then it would switch to the board. I actually set up a real board and input my moves while I played it, sitting down at the board. One of the coolest chess experiences I can ever remember.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Chess
September 29, 2018 at 5:35 pm
“For me, the appeal of the Four Knights is primarily that we remove the super-booked Schliemann Lopez specialist….and re-route him directly into our world.”
Cyrus Lakdawala in his intro “the Four Knights, Move by Move” book.
That’s some respect, right there.
October 1, 2018 at 12:34 pm
Yes, I see. I have good results with it online. 🙂
October 3, 2018 at 2:53 pm
I played my first-round game of the City Championship last night (five rounds), was glad to have Black. I’ll annotate it tonight.
It looks like I will be playing Thursday in 1800+ section, but there are only a couple of us playing, maybe a quad at most, but it’s same time-control, one round a week.
October 5, 2018 at 3:30 am
I published my game from last night.
October 5, 2018 at 10:56 am
I will look at your games.
I managed to get to the club yesterday.
I had a lot of stress lately, but thought I am OK and didn’t want to miss the game, as otherwise it would make it a 3 weeks break due to Thanksgiving on Monday. I had Black, my opponent was a boy whom I beat a year ago, when his rating was about 1400, now it is 1539.
He opened with d4, I played Semi-Slav and was OK after the opening.
Then he started a pawn minority attack on the queenside. I couldn’t find a good plan, went for wrong exchanges, but the position was still equal.
Then my bad shape started to show up, I made a bad move.
I didn’t even see that after exchanges I will be down a pawn.
So we ended up in the rook endgame with me pawn down. I had a passed pawn on the queenside and he had a protected passed pawn in the center, then he created a passed pair. Houdini says his advantage was about +1,
so probably being in a better shape I could still resist, but as it was I didn’t find a good defense and lost.
October 5, 2018 at 3:51 pm
When I played last night, three times in the opening I didn’t even see his move. Once, I calculated it wrong, but the other two times I didn’t even think that his first move was possible. Meanwhile, I was doing great at calculating the things that I was actually looking at. I chalked it up to, he’s just understanding the position better than I am.
Oh, I just read that you lost a rook ending a pawn down. This is still the “hardest” part of the game for me is the endgame. I saw hard in quotes because it’s more you know something or you don’t, or you have plenty of time to analyze OTB, which of course never happens. The one thing I haven’t been studying the past few months is endgames, and it showed last night.
So, I hear you on losing a rook endgame a pawn down. I’ve had to look at some endgames from time to time, but have quite a time trying to permanently memorize them. The Vancura position, for example is one to know, but that’s against a rook pawn.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/karsten-mueller-understanding-the-vancura-draw
The main thing in rook endings is cutting off the king, but some rook endgames get really tricky. Part of the problem for me, perhaps, is not having the fundamentals down well enough. I plan on getting some more endgame books and studying that phase of the game more in the future.
Semi-slav seems to deserve a lot of time. I have been looking the Chigorin …Nc6 and Baltic …Bf5 openings recently, they are at least more active. I like semi-slav, want to try Noteboom, though I hear White rarely allows it.
You may have been lead to play your line of a pawn loss through process-of-elimination, where it simply looked better than alternatives, and somtimes sacking a pawn for play is the correct thing to do anyway. Usually, when this happens to me, it’s because I’m not finding more/other ideas in the position.
It helps to play, in any case. My opponent left an hour on his clock last night, and it reinforced for me that one of my main weaknesses is not thinking efficiently with less time. I thought I would be okay, and my opponent was making some excuses before the game, but quite naturally it turned out the opposite that he was sharper than I was, and he had been teaching chess to kids in a class earlier that day also.
October 5, 2018 at 5:59 pm
Funny blitz game. This player desperately wanted to get in his Two Knights Defense attack, and it backfired on him.
https://lichess.org/HSLAC4n7gKjg
October 7, 2018 at 5:51 pm
It is a first time I hear about Vancura draw, very interesting.
Yeah, your blitz game is funny.
I played probably the best game with the Schliemann gambit:
https://www.ficsgames.org/cgi-bin/show.cgi?ID=436010406
The combination in the end was not quite sound, but it worked.
Instead of 20. gxh3 he had to play 20. f4 and instead of crucial mistake 22. Kg2 there was 22. Kg2 with -2.
I commented on your last two games.
October 10, 2018 at 4:39 am
hehe. Thank you! 🙂
I published my game from tonight, but haven’t had a chance to look at either your comments or your game. Will do, though.
October 10, 2018 at 4:56 am
Wow, did not see that coming. I saw your moves, but didn’t suspect you would necessarily play them.
I saw the positional …Bc8 after Nc5, and maybe you play your knight to …e5. But, after seeing you give up dark-squared bishop for knight, it didn’t surprise me that you had decided to break off the positional play for a tactical continuation.
I noticed that the other capture on h3 wins an exchange, but you were playing for mate! Very nice job! 🙂
October 11, 2018 at 9:28 am
Thank you!
I saw your game, congratulations, will comment later.
October 12, 2018 at 9:20 am
I played yesterday, got 1479 rated boy, had White.
I still wasn’t in the best shape, even the choice of the opening – Ruy Lopez, anti-Marshall shows it. I played just one game with it, 8. a4 variation and lost.
I could win a pawn in the opening for the price of Spanish bishop and doubled isolated pawns and opted not to do it, computer approved, giving only +0.15. In the middlegame I got worse, but scared him off offering a pawn sacrifice (not sound), which he didn’t accept and we transferred into a Q+B vs. Q+N endgame, where I was better.
There were some chances, but I didn’t use them. With about a minute remaining I didn’t go for a forced line transferring into a queen endgame, which looked risky (computer gave it about 0.6) and went instead for a perpetual.
Here is how you should play anti-Marshall:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070679
October 14, 2018 at 5:44 am
That was a good job then, with 1 minute, to find a perpetual. You can’t pay attention to ratings so much with only a minute or so on the clock, unless you feel that it’s a completely safe position.
That Kasparov-Short game was rather tactically complex at the end.
Lots of good anti-Marshall lines, like h3, which I don’t see the drawback of because that is a normal move anyhow for White, unless White _wants_ to allow the Marshall. I thought maybe the concern was that by playing h3 instead of c3, that …Na5 could be annoying, but Houdini doesn’t like it, and anyway you can ignore it with d3, c3, or even Nc3, but most likely Nbd2, and if Black doesn’t take on b3, then you can retreat your bishop.
Of course, I like the thought of playing a King’s Gambit against a 1400 that is not totally booked, If that is their rating, then they will have a weakness somewhere.
Lopez’s can become drawish when an opportunity is missed, or equal endgamish might be a better description for it. It’s hard to blame yourself over that, unless something is clearly missed. All you can do is to prolong the game as long as possible. This is why much higher-rated will try Scotch, KG, Evan’s Gambit, etc, against lower-rateds. Still, your opponent might have played well, because the Lopez is one of the most difficult openings to handle as Black, IMHO, positionally speaking.
It would be interesting to see the game, of course. I know your games are usually quite close.
October 14, 2018 at 5:50 am
Me and Alex played a 31 move blindfold game, first time in about a year, and first time that I won against him at it (as White). Normally, I make illegal moves, but there were none this time, and he remembered the moves.
Of course, our play was subpar because it’s blindfold. It’s interesting how it’s easier to exert discipline in blindfold because you are forced to by it’s nature. It’s much harder to blindfold two-moves deep at the board, even knowing that you have blindfold skills, I find, because there is nothing to force a person to have that discipline at the board, except for the thought of losing or not winning.
October 14, 2018 at 6:02 am
This article is sort of amusing, the old man vs the kid.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-books-and-youth-vs-old-age
Oh, I see you’ve posted your game, so I’ll have to check it out now!