Round 1 I was on the white side of a Caro-Kan. I think my over confidence got the best of me as I tried to get fancy ( off the mainline) by move 9:
Duval,G - Barreul,I [B19]35th World Open (1.171)[,gduval]
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Nf3 Nd7 7.h4 h6 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bf4 Book is 9Bd3 Bxd3 10 Qxd3 which is what I was contemplating. But I wanted to create some dynamics with bishops posted on f4 ( to prevent Qc7) and Bc4 to put pressure on the f7 square.
Hindsight, Stick to the mainline. Who do I think I am, Beliavsky?
9...Ngf6 10.Bc4 e6 11.Qe2 Oh How I wanted to do a Bishop sac on e6. 11...Qa5+ 12.c3 Nd5 13.Bd2 This is where ths Bishop needs to be in the first place.
13...Qc7 14.Ne5 Nxe5 15.Qxe5 Qxe5+ 16.dxe5
I looked at this position before the exchange and thought I had a good end game prospects. The Pawns on e5 and h5 fixes blacks pawns but I was so far behind in tempo I could not make this work.
16...0-0-0 17.0-0-0 This was bad. Castling King side or staying in the center would have been a more promising game. But in the heat of battle, I was worried about the a7-g1 diagonal. My pieces were not well coordinated and I was hoping to getting some play. 17...Bc5 18.Rhf1 Moving the Bishop to e1 might have faired better. Then I could have made use of the rook luft on the h-file. Despite my central space advantage, my position was horrbly cramped. 18...b5 19.Be2 a5 20.a3 b4 21.c4 bxa3 22.b3 Nb4 23.Bxb4 axb4 24.Bf3 Bd4 25.Rd2 Bb2+ 26.Rxb2 axb2+ 27.Kxb2 Rd2+ 28.Kc1 Rc2+ 29.Kd1 Rd8+ 30.Ke1 Rc1+ 0-1
Game 2. I played the balck side of the Caro-Kan. Another Mainline vairation and I got "fancy" again. The 60-move battle was a treatise on the imbalance of my opponent's Queen versus my Rook, Knight and 2 pawns. I lost the endgame because once again I was castled queen side when I shouldn't have and my opoonent had compensation in teh form of a pawn attack on the queen side. I won't post THAT game... unless you folks really want it.
On a side note, my daughter drew her second game in the U800 section and my step son has the same score as me. We are all saying " Today was a nice practice session. On to the wins now!"
We are having fun though... the main reason why we do this. I see a lot of familiar faces and I have been taking some pictures... a later date I will post some of these.
I have to comment on some of the fashion statements being made. There are those like yours truely sporting the chess Tee-Shirt du jour ( Mine said: " Note to self, Hit the clock") Kids where vintage rock shirts of bands that broke up LONG before they were born. Then there are the true geek shirts ( Linux penguin spotted) and a man wearing a reservoir dog tee shirt with a suit coat and slacks... go figure.
More later. Thanks for putting up with me... and sorry to let folks down in my early rounds. I still have time to catch up.
-BP
3 comments:
George,
Very sorry to see that it isn't going better. Make sure to have some fun watching the GMs for me. I have wanted to make it to the World Open since I was in scholastics back in the early 90's. Always wanted to see a room full of those hotshots, but it's just never happened. :-(
That's good stuff for Nika!
As far as your game, I think that more than the Bf4, the real lesson is to have a healthy respect for black's white square diagonal in the Caro-Kann. You were killed in mobility by that sucker on h7. In almost all of the C-K lines you gotta kill that beast as white or it will really put a crimp in your style.
No knock on Jorge, but yeesh, gotta emphasize those openings! See my latest blog on the woes of bad opening play, chesspraxis.blogspot.com.
Chin up and break a leg; I'm rooting for you.
Joshua,
Thanks for the support. You have always given me solid practical advise that I have been able to apply. ( Most notably my transition to an 1.e4 game for white). I will link your blog on my sidebar.
I think what happened yesterday, I was caught up in the excitement. The atmosphere was electric. In both my games, I tried to get "fancy". This is similar to back when I would make unsound tactical shots ( I called them cowboy moves) except these are positional Blunders.
Jorge intends to teach me positionally and is working from the perspective that endgames are teh fundamental to positional analysis. He will work on my repertoire dowsn the road.
Have fun! I guess I need to learn something about the Caro-Kann now. Everyone seems to be playing it, even some guy I played the other night at a coffee shop.
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