EPT
I found a club to play at near my home. They play Thursday evenings with rated play. The time control is 2 hours and they're mostly adults. I didn't want to play in a club full of kids. Playing online on places like FICS is nice but I always get the feeling I can easily be cheated by them. What's to stop them from entering their moves into a chess engine while they play me?
When I started playing in high school my repertoire for White was strictly Giuoco Piano and Sicilian Dragon. Against Queen's Pawn I would just play Queen's Gambit Accepted. As I got better I realized if I play e4 I have to deal with so many different defense systems. I'll play d4, because that's what many top players were doing at the time. I had graduated from the Dragon to the Najdorf. I was still playing Queen's Gambit Accepted. I owned MCO-14 so I knew a lot about openings. My middlegame was very average. My endgame skills were very poor. I engaged in lots of bughouse and blitz games with my club members but soon I finished high school and went off to college. In college I would occasionally play bughouse on FICS but when it's not in person it just wasn't as fun.
It all started near the end of August. My mom had recently purchased me an iPad 2 for my birthday gift and naturally I installed chess. I challenged my roommate who is a Berkeley Engineering grad to a game of chess and stomped all over him. He said if we played Chinese chess (he's from mainland) he would win. I played him in Chinese chess and stomped him twice after learning the rules. Chinese chess had no harmony in my opinion. It was just wild attacking. Attacking back was the only defense. There were no "styles" to playing Xiangqi. I remembered the beauty of chess and decided to get back into chess.
Alas, I had bought a wonderful chess clock in high school but donated it to the club when I graduated. The Chronos Chess Clock is the king of all chess clocks. I immediately purchased it and started playing games with my roommate. He started enjoying it less and less cause his calculation skills were probably equal to mine but I had a stronger innate sense of strategy, pawn structure, tactics, etc etc. I longed for the old days of having a chess club to go to but at 25 I didn't want to play with a bunch of kids. I did some research and found a club nearby that offers rated play. I decided to drop in and discovered it was exactly what I was looking for. 95% adults. Young and old. Normal guys and of course the chess weirdos. (Chess weirdos are the guys who obsess about chess and that's like all they do. Don't care about their social life. Or smell for that matter.)
I decided to join the club and enter the tournaments they hold. The tournaments 4-6 rounds each and are a swiss with each round being played once a week. I had a preexisting USCF membership so I renewed my membership. But the last time I played a rated game was when I was in middle school so my rating didn't really reflect the level of my skill. It's a sparse 1055.
My first game I of course played a fantastic opening. Solid middlegame. Poor endgame. Resigned an actually drawn position.
My second game I played the #2 seed. I had decided to go back to e4. "Best by test," according to Bobby Fischer, who although possibly the greatest chess genius to live, turned into an anti-Semitic reclusive weirdo after FIDE stripped his World Champion title from him and gave it to Anatoly Karpov. I had studied the Najdorf extensively with the Black pieces and decided to play an old system. The opening was clearly me ahead with the white pieces. Played a fantastic middlegame. Blundered my extra pawn and drew. Wonderful.
My third game is the one I'd like to share and annotate. I had been playing on FICS and was still using Queen's Gambit Accepted against d4. I started realizing how inactively the dxc4 was and how drawish it was. I decided to change to the King's Indian Defense. Nimzo-Indian and the Gruenfeld Defense seemed very wild. Fischer and Kasparov stuck to KID so I picked it up and studied a few master games. I wanted to have a game replayed in the blog but I unfortunately am not staff anymore and cannot edit HTML. Here is the link.
However, if a RED staff could edit this HTML into the blog I would be much obliged.
<iframe scrolling = "no" width = "400" frameborder = "0" height = "580" src="http://www.chessvideos.tv/replayer-insert.php?id=73804" style = "border: 1px solid black;"></iframe>
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-replayer.php?id=73804
[Event "Kolty Sonic Reserve"]
[Site "Campbell Methodist Church"]
[Date "2012.11.29"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Gerald O'Flaherty"]
[Black "Jonathan Pak"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "E61"]
[WhiteElo "1688"]
[BlackElo "1055"]
Mr. O'Flaherty was a very elderly gentleman who somewhat demanded that we add a 5 second delay to the already long 2 hour time control. I didn't want to make things awkward and just agreed.
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3
(He probably wanted to go into a Queen's Indian or avoid a Nimzo-Indian.)
2. ... g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O
(Now we've transposed to a King's Indian. I was somewhat excited because I've been practicing King's Indian Defense games on FICS. I rather enjoyed watching some master games with KID. One of the commentators said that engines don't like KID. Apparently they give a plus to white until "black checkmates the white king.")
5. e3 ?
(5. e4 is a much better move. Makes Black strive for equality. O'Flaherty ends up losing a tempo a few moves later.)
5. ... d6 6. Bd3
(I felt that 6. Be2 was better. If white pushes e4 then it makes the light-squared bishop "extra" bad.)
6. ... Nbd7 7. O-O e5 8. d5 Qe7 9. e4
(White's already a tempo behind. My plan is to get in f5-f4-g5 and have a rolling attack on white's castled king. In a lot of games white aims to break up the closed center by attacking the pawn base on the queenside. I've learned that normally if you plan on a queenside initiative you aim for a long-term game. Kingside initiatives are usually for pressing a checkmate so it usually results in either a checkmated king or a disadvantage in the endgame.)
9. ... Ne8
(Making space for the thematic KID f5.)
10. b4 f5 ?!
(Premature. 10. ... a5 11. b5 f5 closing white's counterplay is stronger. The premature f5 allows the following move from white.)
11. Bg5 ! Bf6 12. Bh6 ?
(12. Bd2 f4 with a focus on the queenside is better.)
12. ... Bg7 13. Bxg7 ?
(This was exactly what I wanted! I wanted his good bishop for my bad bishop. I never dreamed that he would actually give it to me by move 13.)
13. ...Nxg7 14. Qc2
(O'Flaherty dropped the queen with authority and got up to walk around as if it was a very strong move. I believe he was thinking 14. ... fxe4 15. Nxe4 followed by a knight going to g5 and then to e6. That would be disastrous for black, perhaps this was what O'Flaherty was planning.)
14. ... f4 !
(I made this as soon as O'Flaherty got up. He sat back down and had a horrified look on his face. Perhaps he's realized that he's left with a very useless misplaced bishop. His "plan" is already behind mine.)
15.Nb5 Nf6 16. c5 a6
(I pondered a little bit over 16. ... Bg4 17. cxd6 cxd6 17. Qc7 Qxc7 18. Nxc7 Rad8 with chances for both sides. I felt the text though was an improvement. It could effectively squash white's queenside chances.)
17. cxd6 cxd6 18. Na3 ? b5 !
(White's suddenly down two pieces! "A knight on the rim is grim." That light-squared bishop on d3 is biting granite or his own pawns! I was expecting 18. Nc3 and then continuing with Nd2 and Nc4 with play on the queenside. Na3 was just a lemon. Now the weak pawn on d6 is no longer easy to attack. The c4 square now is also covered by the pawn on b5. Rybka gives a much better continuation if he played 18. Qc7 Qxc7 19. Nxc7 Rb8 20. Rac1 Bg4 = with good play on the queenside for white and good kingside play for black.)
19. Rfc1 Ra7
(I thought about this move for a while. The idea behind Ra7 was to protect the c7 square from invasion by the white queen and also be ready to swing over to g7 to support a g-pawn push and/or put pressure on white's king. I figured eventually the knight will be off of g7 and the king will move over to h8. If I can double rooks on the g-file it could be a devastating attack.)
20. Qe2
(Walking into a pin.)
20. ... Bg4 21. Rc2 g5
(Natural continuation of black's plan. 20. ... Rc7 challenging the c-file was better.)
22. Rac1 Kh8
(I spent a long time on this move. I wanted to make room for my rook on g8 when the fireworks start.)
23. Qd2 ?
(O'Flaherty spent 30 minutes on this move and came up with this move. I think he failed in coming up with a good plan and had nothing better to do. His counterplay on the c-file is superficial. He has no entry points. His light-squared bishop on d3 and the knight on a3 has nowhere to go. I personally feel that Nb1-Nd2-Nf1 was probably his best bet to get at least another piece back into action since it has no decent place on the queenside.)
24. ... Bxf3 24. gxf3 g4 25. fxg4 ?
(25. Be2 was much stronger. Taking the pawn on g4 allows a knight to get on e3. Kasparov says a knight on the 6th rank is not a knight, it's an octopus :o).)
25. ... Nxg4 26. f3 Ne3 27. Rc8
(Another funny moment. O'Flaherty drops the rook on c8 and then proceeds to strut around the room thinking he had taken advantage of a weak bank-rank.)
27. ... Ra8 !
(One possible defense would be to ignore it and focus on attacking the king but I felt that it ties down my queen. He had a stunned look on his face when he came back. He clearly did not see Ra8 before he played 26. Rc8.)
28. R8c7 Qg5+ 29. Kh1
(Rybka gives this position as black being two pawns ahead. How I threw away a sure-win position just shows how atrociously poor I am at endgame. I've started to remedy that by buying an endgame book.)
29. ... Qh5 ?
(This gives away any advantage black has! The right move is 29. ... Nh5 ! and white's king is at the mercy of the black pieces. Play could follow 30. Qf2 Rg8 31. Rg1 Qh6 and things are just ugly for white.)
30. Qf2 Qh3 ? 31. Nc2 ?
(We are after all not masters. Two bad moves in a row. 30. ... Qh3 is refuted by 31. Bf1!)
31. ... Nh5 !
(Better late than never. Black's now got his advantage again, though the plus is smaller.)
32. Nxe3 fxe3 33. Qg2 Rxf3 ?
(The win is here! Such an easy tactical shot. A beginner should be able to see it. 33. ... Qxg2! 34. Kxg2 Nf4+ winning white's bishop. The knight can easily retreat back to his new snug home on f4. Out of all the mismoves I made I felt this was the worst that I missed. I was really sad that I missed this tactic considering I regularly practice tactics. I feel I made 33. ... Rxf3 too quickly instead of searching for something better. I had a huge time advantage as well.)
34. Qxh3 Rxh3 35. Bf1 Rh4 36. Re1 Ng3+ ?
(Silman warns his students to not go for idiot combinations. Something that's flashy but results in nothing. This was one of those moments. The natural Rg8 is extremely strong. If 37. Rxe3 then 37. ... Rhg4 threatens checkmate and white must give up the exchange with 38. Rg3 Nxg3+ 39. hxg3 Rxg3. Certainly not 36. ... Rxe4 ?? 37. Bd3 and it's lights out for black.)
37. Kg2 Nxf1 ?
(Geez. Nothing wrong with 37. Nxe4 38. Rxe3 Rg8+. You can still hold a commanding advantage you Idiot.)
38. Kxf1 Rxh2 39. Rxe3 Rf8+ 40. Kg1 Rxa2 ??
(This was the blunder of the end. I threw away a win and allowed a forced draw.)
41. Rh3 Rg8+
(Extremely funny moment here. O'Flaherty has less than 5 minutes on his clock. I didn't say check very loud so he plays Rxh7 thinking it was checkmate. It's illegal since his king is still in check.)
42. Kf1 Rf8+ 43. Ke1 Ra1+ 44. Ke2 Ra2+ 45. Ke1 Rg2 46. Rcxh7+ Kg8 47. Rh8+ Kg7 48. R3h7+ Kg6 49. Rh6+ Kg7 50. R6h7+ Kg6 1/2-1/2
All in all. I'm very pleased with the level that I played at. Clearly my endgame technique needs work but I'm proud of the way I handle the opening and middlegame.
