Best OTB club game win

Posted on February 26th, 2016 by Richard

I have played a little this season at the local chess club and was having a good run of success until my last game several weeks ago. The trouble was, I was not used to winning games at the club! My rating had increased to 105 ECF and strangely when I played my last game and lost I had felt inhibited during the game, because I had felt under pressure to keep winning! I lost that game badly! I was playing White and it was a Scandinavian opening and I blundered in the opening and lost a knight to a simple Queen check and fork that I had been vaguely aware was possible after I made my blunder to allow it! I played my blunder move anyway without properly considering it,because I thought I was going to sac the piece anyway. Mmmmm! That was a huge brain freeze by me. It shows me how you need your brain clear and properly focused on the game in front of you. Without out a doubt, when you start to play a chess game, you need to be in the right frame of mind for the game ahead. To be worried about other matters (such as keeping a winning run going and day to day problems in your head) just leads to poor performance. My advice to myself is to put such things out of your mind and only focus on playing good chess. Hopefully I have learnt my lesson and the game I played last night was my best win at the chess club.

I played on board 3 (of 4) and had the Black pieces. My opponent was graded 141. He started with 1.d4 and I played 1…e6. This is a flexible move by me, giving the opponent the chance to play 2.d4 and so transpose to the French defence. Most other moves from the opponent eg 2.c4 or 2.Nf3 I treat the game as a Queen pawn opening and I continue with 2…b6 and play the English defence. In this game he played
2.Nf3 and I went on with 2…b6 and the English defence.

Of course I have some experience with the English defence and with it, I have learnt, there are several ways to play this opening. 2 main ones are either to play for a f4 pawn chain that can allow for a good kingside attack (if the opponent has castled kingside!) or with a d6 pawn chain which is a much quieter and flexible yet very solid way to play.

[pgn height=500 initialHalfmove=16 autoplayMode=none]
[Event “Club game”]
[Site “Bury St Edmunds CC”]
[Date “2016.02.25”]
[Round “9”]
[White “AN”]
[Black “Me “]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “A10”]
[WhiteECF “141”]
[BlackECF “105”]

1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 b6 3. e4 Bb7 4. Bd3 Ne7 5. O-O Ng6 6. c4 d6 7. Nc3 Nd7 8.
a3 Be7 9. b4 O-O 10. Re1 e5 11. d5 Nf6 12. a4 Nh5 13. Ne2 Qd7 14. c5 dxc5
15. b5 Nh4 16. Nxe5 Qd6 17. Ng4 f5 18. exf5 Nxf5 19. Be4 Rae8 20. Qd3 Bc8
21. Qh3 Nf6 22. Bf4 Qd7 23. Nxf6+ Bxf6 24. Bxf5 Qxf5 25. Qxf5 Bxf5 26. Rad1
Be5 27. Bxe5 Rxe5 28. f4 Re4 29. Rc1 Rxa4 30. Nc3 Rc4 31. Kf2 h6 32. Kf3
Kf7 33. g4 Bd7 34. h4 Re8 35. Red1 Rb4 36. Ra1 Ra8 37. Rdb1 Rd4 38. g5 Rd3+
{Opponent low on time}resigns 0-1

[/pgn]

In the game last night, I chose to play for the quiet d6 pawn formation and my opponent took the chance to occupy the centre with his pawns. His pawns looked threatening, but as my set up was so solid, when I made my e5 pawn break I was perfectly sound. Later he made a pawn break which again I handled well and gave him no advantage. Later still, I played both my knights to the rim on the kingside! The point being, that was only temporary, as I brought a knight to f5 and both knights were attacking his kingside castle. This did allow my e5 pawn to be taken, but I got compensation by attacking with my Queen.

I played the opening slowly but carefully and had a solid position and my plan was then simple, to attack on the kingside. My opponent had started a Queenside pawn advance but I felt it was too slow
and I concentrated on my kingside attack. This caused my opponent to slow down and he slowly started to get low on time.

I played the middle game much quicker than the opening, as I had a simple clear plan to bring as many attackers to the kingside as possible. He did defend my kingside attack well but he had to think carefully about this and his play slowed right down. I decided to be patient and persistent
with my attack and after a few exchanges I felt I had a better position even though I had not exposed his king directly. As such, I wanted to continue to trade pieces, as I felt I could get a reasonable end game position, but he refused to trade and he then started to bring his kingside pawn majority down the board.

However he missed a rook check from me winning his knight (a blunder) and he resigned! He only had 4 minutes left on his clock and I had 15 minutes left and I was now a piece ahead. A good win for me and my patient approach to the game!

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Written by: Richard

8 move blitz win

Posted on October 30th, 2015 by Richard

It is a long time since I posted or did a chess video.

Here is a post showing a blitz game video in the Nimzowitsch defence I won yesterday in 8 moves.

[Event “ICC 5 0 r”]
[Site “Internet Chess Club”]
[Date “2015.10.29”]
[Round “?”]
[White “me”]
[Black “RF”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ICCResult “Black checkmated”]
[ICCRating “5-minute”]
[Variant “Chess”]
[WhiteElo “1118”]
[BlackElo “1149”]
[TimeControl “300+0”]
[ExamineString “”]

1. e4 {0:05:00} Nc6 {0:05:00} 2. d4 {0:04:54} e5 {0:04:58}
3. Nf3 {0:04:50} f6 {0:04:41} 4. dxe5 {0:04:38} fxe5 {0:04:38}
5. Bc4 {0:04:25} Be7 {0:04:13} 6. Qd5 {0:04:22} d6 {0:03:50}
7. Qf7+ {0:04:17} Kd7 {0:03:43} 8. Be6# {0:04:12} 1-0

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Written by: Richard

Back into blitz

Posted on January 26th, 2015 by Richard

In my last posts I mentioned how I had taken a break from chess play since the end of October 2014. Well I also mentioned that I want to start playing again so about 10 days ago I started back playing 5min blitz on ICC.

This was a disaster! I was so rusty and played so badly that my rating of 1300 plummetted to an all time low of 950! Even players of 900 seemed to play well against me but in reality it was I was playing badly and I lost a lot of won games on time too as I had slowed down greatly!

Well I stuck at it and I am getting my rating back slowly (I’m back at around 1200 now). I have also been doing a little study and looked at the Kings Indian Attack opening for white. This was a favourite of Bobby Fischer and so can be recommended especially to me a 1.e4 player. Of course, the KIA can be reached after 1.Nf3 and having the choice of KIA or Reti after 1.Nf3 will instantly help my rating soar up! I wish…LOL! Seriously though, knowing these 2 1.Nf3 openings is good for any improving player. 1.Nf3 is a common choice for current GM’s as it is so flexible and gives good opportunities.

Finally on the KIA (specifically 2.Nf3), there is the question of can it be used as a hybrid opening in the Sicilian and integrated with my favourite 2.c3 Alapin Sicilian using 2.Nf3 with a delayed 3.c3?
I think this is feasible and below is my latest chess video showing this:

My goal now is to play better blitz and get my rating to 1400-1600. If you have read this blog before you know this has been a long time goal of mine (at least over the last 2 years!). I really think the key to achieving this is to focus on this and play very regularly. In the past I have just played in bursts and never kept at playing enough to try to get this done. Hopefully this year will be different and I can achieve my aim….we will see! ……GAME ON! 🙂

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Written by: Richard

Chess in 2015

Posted on January 9th, 2015 by Richard

I hope to blog more regularly on all aspects of chess in this new year 2015.
Today I have made an earlier post (very belatedly) on my Bury St Edmunds chess congress performance which was the only tournament I played last year. Since the tournament I have played and done very little chess activity but it is a New Year resolution of mine to play more chess and enjoy it and blog on it more….

Happy New Chess Year 2015

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Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress 2014

Posted on January 9th, 2015 by Richard

A belated quick report on my progress in this tournament. I finished with 21/2-5. The drawn game was unusual. I played the white side of an Alapin Sicilian and attacked the Black castled king hard. After several sacs, I failed to spot the black king had a rook defending the position, and then the best I had was a repeating perpetual check of the black king to get the draw. Now I can only recall the detail of one of my two losses where I played my favourite Scotch as white and it was in the comfortable Ghulam Khassim variation. I attacked hard in the opening with an opportunity to get the black king exposed early but instead of going the exchange down for a good position I “bottled” and tried playing safe.That gave me a worse position and while I tried to cling on, my opponent made no errors and ground out a win.

Playing at 32nd Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress Minor section 2014

So that was two games I attacked hard and fast early and was lucky to get a half point from! There is a lesson for me to learn in that if I do attack early I need to commit fully to it, but I should know some attacks need more support than I have prepared so I should be more patient with my whole game.

The best game I won was a strange French defence where I went the exchange up (I lost my bishop for winning a rook). My opponent played on doggedly to the end but I held my advantage to win.

During the congress I managed to see and speak with FM Alan Merry and I even bought a few secondhand chess books which I hope to look at and learn from.

The other notable event was the thanks given to event organiser Bob Jones who has now handed over the event after running it for 16 years..well done Bob!

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Former BKJCC member Alan Merry now FM…

Posted on October 16th, 2014 by Richard

FM Alan Merry was a former member of the Bury Knights Junior Chess Club and he performed excellently at the recent Chess Poker Stars Isle of Man tournament.

I post here one of his games as black in the French Defence Tarrasch variation:

Very interesting finish involving a Queen sac and minor piece mating attack..great tactics! 🙂

Well played Alan and congrats on your tournament success!

Alan is playing the Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress at the end of October and I will be playing there too (minor section for me).

See 2014 Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress

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Written by: Richard