The Massachusetts G60 event featured 4 sections, Open, U2000, U1700 and U1400. I decided not to play up and played in the U1700 since my rating has been barely staying above water for class B (1628).
I won three games and drew one in a 4 round Swiss to earn a tie for first place with some kid. We split the first and second place bounty and walked out with 150 bucks. Nice, this will go to my Philly World open Crash and burn tour this summer.
In any case, the last round game can be found here. Oddly enough, between rounds Ken and I had played against each other at an earlier event ( Sturbridge) where I won, and we were discussing the game and how I played the caro-kann. He asked what I would play in the advanced variation if white were to play h4. I told him, h6 is typically a way I handle it. He proceeded to caution me about playing h6 instead of h5 which prevents g4 ( bayonet).
2 rounds later, the game began and I was playing black to an advanced variation of the C-K. He deliberately chose NOT to play the h4 bayonet line since he told me in his mind how to refute it.
At one point, tired after 6 hours of chess I decided to go into a premature queen side attack because I was full of myself. I ended up in a tight spot:
After 15 ... b5 Yeah I had a headache too!
Long story short, I sac my queen in exchange for the two rooks. Then I recover with a knight fork against his queen and bishop. He then decides to sac his queen for a rook and knight! Down to a 2 Bishops versus Rook and and Bishop endgame. I had 30 minutes on my clock and my opponent was down to under 4 minutes! A point is a point... regardless of how ugly this ducking was.
My next post will wrap up the first round of the London 1851 series before getting into the second round eliminations. Stay tuned to learn about the person who earned the nickname " the britsh sloth" and why time controls became important in the following year's event!
8 comments:
Congrats man! Always good to hear of knights/former knights kicking butt!
Sweet! I agree that your attack was premature and if your opponent was a better tactician he would have won. But compared to your opponent--you knew the opening better, you were able to grasp the tactical complications deeper and faster than your opponent, and you knew how to convert. You deserved the win! Congratulations on winning first place. :)
Congrats, ya tactical madman.
WTG! Isn't it nice to play in your own section and actually win the sucker? :-)
I had actually considered driving up to play in that, but stayed closer to home instead.
Super congrats BP. That is most excellent. Do you think opening knowledge helped you more in those faster time controls?
To all: Thanks for putting up with my bragging.
PMD, Great to hear from you. I used a modified "Wetzell" technique to monitor my time control. Given it was a G60 I set fictiously a 40 move game. For every 10 moves I put a 15 minute time limit. When I reached that I jotted down iehter a plus or minus in minutes as a guage. All my games ended in 40 or less moves. The first ten moves I averaged +8 minutes.
Knowing the openings did give me an advantage out of the gate for the first 5 moves tops. Typically my opponent strays at that point.
Understanding the positions from teh game analysis I've been doign lately helepd me in hte next block of time for positional evaluation and finding plans. Doing tactics a couple days prior to the event sharpened the calculator. SO I'd say it was a little of everything.
Who was that lousy opponent? Couldn't he see that a3 is winning for white (at any one of several moves)? Even after the queen for two rooks trade, white is better after Qc3 rather than bxa4. Shame on you for taking advantage of an old man :-). Congratulations.
Ken Gurge
ps- Nice Blog site.
Ha Ken, thanks. Welcome I hope you enjoy the London 1851 series I've been covering.
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