I broke another losing streak Tuesday at the Club. I was tired, I thought I was going to be paired with the ever so generous Mr Bye, who grants me a point when I suck wind the first couple rounds and I am the lowest rated player. I showed up for the pre-event group tutoring with David Harris and figured if I didn't get paired, I'd stick around and watch a couple games and call it an early night.
But, No. We had a late entry who was granted access to our section and I was no longer the odd loser out. My opponent is a part time college grad student working full time. His youth could have been a strength, but he was unfamiliar with my lame ass opening and I decided to mix it up 
even more and try a bayonet attack like I successfully stabbed out at the Eastern Class a few weeks back. ( It was a win so I didn't blog it).
even more and try a bayonet attack like I successfully stabbed out at the Eastern Class a few weeks back. ( It was a win so I didn't blog it). I've also been reading Andy Soltis' The Inner Game of Chess, How to calculate and Win. This book takes Kotov's, Think like a grandmaster, and spoons it out into patzer sized portions for me to drool down on my bib. Some substance must be starting to make its way in because this game ( as annotated below) had me seeing the position I wanted 3 moves before it happened. It was especially sweet seeing the pawn mate coming up.
8 comments:
Loved your "patzer sized portions that I drool down my bib". Laughed out loud.
sweet!
Bayonet attacks combined with the Arabian Mate checks pushing him up the board makes this a fun game. Nicely done.
I especially enjoy queenless attacks. A lot of people seem to le their guard down when the queens come off. Nice.
Sweet ending. Kc7 didn't look so good even if there wasn't mate, but it was a pretty knockout blow.
Was the kid's name Brian McGuire by any chance? That guy used the copycat strategy in 4th grade. Annoying.
Very cool game. g4 is fun.
I wanted to talk about 20.f4 for a second, there is a problem with this move. You went into the knight game because your knight was better but by playing f4 you are ceding the e4 square to black's knight, he should have responded 20...Nf6 moving the knight right back to where it came. Then he could have blocked up the e-file and established his knight aggressively. It is important to evaluate pawn moves very carefully because they are permanent and you are giving up control over squares. Further, this is the drawback to pushing pawns early, it gains space but it creates weaknesses in your camp, allowing silly moves like Qg3.
Drunkenknight, your second's up! :)
I knew he could get his knight to e4 via Nf6. At that point I was perfectly alright to exchange knights on e4 leaving him with a hard to defend pawn ( my pawn was going to f5). f4 also took threat off my H2 pawn by blocking the diagonla for his queen.
Tak: I like games when I can see these tactics. I had a corridor mate recently as well. My opponent clearly didn't see it and he too was a 1700 player like this player. I am really trying hard to focus on consistency in my playing strength so I can get back up to 1700 this summer.
LEP: No this wasn't Brian McGuire.
With everything already said about the chess skill displayed in this game, congratulations on an excelent game.
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