Israel Crooks (1782) vs Patrick O'Sullivan (1859)

Coming in to this game, I had won the first round against Doug Gillis (my second win against him) and my opponent Israel Crooks had upset the division's top seed Yelizaveta Orlova (1992). I was confident coming into this game because my victory against Doug Gillis was very efficient and I felt that I was precise.

Israel Crooks (1782) vs Patrick O'Sullivan (1859)
1.e4 c6 2.Nf3!?- This move was a surprise to me, but a quick glance at my opponent's score sheet showed that he thought I played 1....c5. He also told me in post-mortem that he had prepared a line in the Caro-Kann classical for this event, which I would have been happy to enter, especially after the position I reached in this game.
2....d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.d4 Nc6 5.c4- I have had the position before c4 in many blitz games and I often came out better after the opening, but I had never seen c4 in a game. When my opponent exchanged on d5 I had a strong feeling that 5.c4 was coming.
5....Nf6- I spent a long time here evaluating Bg4 ,but after 5....Bg4 6.cxd5 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 Nxd4 8.Qe4, it looks like black has too much control of the board, and the game is not the slow maneuvering struggle that I enjoy.
6.Nc3 e6- This is a book move, but 6....Bg4 was much better. It makes no sense to play e6 because the bishop is useless inside the pawn chain, and my opponent remarked after the game that he was very happy about the position after this seemingly innocent move. I should add that in my opinion the reason that the bishop is fine inside the pawn chain in the Slav Defense is because White has no attack (more specifically no Bf4). Here my light square bishop does not contribute to the defense and it just gets in the way.
7.Bd3 Be7- A fine move, but my experience in the Slav shows that once White's light square bishop moves, the pawn must be exchanged. Here I think I got too attached to the idea that I could parry his attack with an advantage in the endgame, and I felt that I would just exchange when I was developed or when his queen got to c2. The queen never went there though, and I never exchanged, even though it was right to do so. The point here is you should never form conditional plans if they are not tactically rooted. This can blur your vision, and in my case, cause you to completely forget about particular ideas. Your strategy does not usually depend on your opponents moves if it involves a necessary device to unravel your position.
8.a3- intending b4
8....a5- I should still take on c4, but I already explained why I was blind to this move- there was no Qc2! Looking back, this is an embarrassing oversight, but it is one I hope to learn from. I am trusting after 8....a5 that the b5 hole cannot be exploited.
9.Bf4- I am now starting to worry about his attacking chances.
9....Bd6 10.Bg5- Here the computer screams that I take on c4, and there is no reason not to. His whole attack is based upon d5 pressure, and my next move will shock you. I guess my head was not in the game, and I can only hope that I have a clearer head in my next tournament.

10....dxc4 should be played- What else??
10....h6?- I lost focus over the center, because it had stayed dormant for a few moves and I focused my attention on the bishop, which loses a pawn. These oversights are not the norm for 1800 players.
11.Bxf6 Qxf6 12.cxd5 exd5 13.O-O?!- No concrete reason to avoid the d5 capture, but it is clear that my opponent loves the attack and could sense that I was drifting out of the game.
13....Ne7?- I could not decide between the text or Be6. My opponent put it nicely when he said that after Be6 both the knight and the bishop are on good squares but after Ne7 neither of them are. The point of Ne7 was to avoid Bb5 and then Qa4 where I am struggling to hold (or so I thought) but I can just castle and play Rfc8 if need be.
14.Bb5+ Bd7 15.Qe2- The idea is to come to b5 with the queen, but now I have a somewhat solid defense. More precise was 15.Bxd7+ Kxd7 16.Qa4+ Kc8 where my king is going to fall in the open board.
15....Qe6 16.Bxd7+ Qxd7 17.Nxd5- The exchange works out well for White here because of the coming pressure on my e7 knight.
17....Bxh2+- The reason I said "exchange"
18.Kxh2 Qxd5 19.Rfe1 Qd6+ 20.Kg1- The pressure on the knight is too much for Black to handle.

20....Kf8- A desperate attempt to escape the pin.
21.Rac1 Ng6- I did not like Nc6 because of 22.d5 Qxd5 23.Rcd8 but the computer argues that I can survive the onslaught on the central files, but in post-mortem we found 22.Qb5, where Black is collapsing.
22.Qb5 Qb8- My Queen is awful here, but it defends the back rank, the pawn, and prevents White from getting his Queen too deep for the moment.
23.Ne5 Nxe5 24.Rxe5 g6- Trying to let the king escape and connect the rooks.
25.Rce1 Kg7 25.Re7 b6 27.R1e3 Ra7- Here I thought I was holding on, but I cannot calculate more than two moves deep when I am losing. I guess I just do not want to experience near-inevitable defeat before it actually occurs on the board. It's a bad habit, but in this particular game it did not matter. I missed Rc8 though, the point of which is that since my queen is on h2, the attacking move Rf3 is impossible in view of Rc1+.
28.Rxa7- The only way to hold the advantage because it keeps me tied down.
28....Qxa7 29.Qe5+- Game over now....
29....Kh7 30.Qf6 Rc8- A very bad move, but the checks were my only practical chance.
31.Re7 Rc1+ 32. Kh2 Qb8+ 33.g3 1-0

This game demonstrates the importance of clarity required in the defense. I extend a hefty congratulations to my opponent, as he finished equal first at 4.0/5.0 at the end of the tournament. I leave this game with the understanding that you cannot attach your strategic aims to a specific move sequence, and that sometimes the best way to defend is not to huddle all of your pieces, but to eliminate your weaknesses by opening up the position a bit. I hope that this defensive concept will allow me to "steel plate" my Caro-Kann for a long time to come.

Thoughts On Guelph

The Guelph Winter Pro-Am Chess Tournament was well-organized and interesting. Since there were a few 1900-2000 rated players playing in the open section, I was slightly closer to the top of the U2000 section than I expected to be. All of my games were interesting, which is not always a good thing for a defensive minded player such as myself. I finished on 3.0/5.0, but considering my opposition and the positions I had I could have extracted more. I have to wait two days to see my new rating, but I will not be surprised if I drop to somewhere around 1840.

I have to use the word "disjointed" when describing my play, as there were numerous incidents where I had a solid plan but failed to execute it because I was caught up in the excitement of the game. With a breif check of Rybka, it appears that I gave too much credit to my opponent's threats when I should have been completing my development and finding the best squares for my pieces. However, the experience I gained here will serve me well, and I will surely find in the future that there are less wrinkles in my game.

I finished the tournament with two wins, two draws, and one loss. I believe that my most instructive game was the loss though, even though it was not the most fun for me. Credit goes to my opponent Israel Crooks for putting his faith in the concept of initiative and being the first person in my chess career to really break my Caro-Kann (Jessse Wang ended up worse out of the opening; I just blundered in time pressure). I will annotate the game shortly, however I am not at home at the moment so I do not have the game score or the diagram software. Mention must be made of my "thrilling" draw against Terry Song (I say "thrilling" because it was certainly uncomfortable for me- at one point I was dead lost but he missed the win. The game ended when he gave perpetual check in the face of mate in two) and I also must express my surprise to encounter the French Defence all three times I had the white pieces! Fortunately (luckily) I had spent a long time on French Defence preparation before the tournament because I felt it was a weakness of mine. Interestingly, it was the only opening I had perpared before the event.

Overall, it was a good tournament (even though I did not play well) and I feel confident about my ability to climb the ratings ladder. To my knowledge I finished somewhere in the 5-7 range of about 18 people. I will need to confirm this on Wednesday though. I also believe that Artiom Samsonkin won the Open section with 4.5/5.0. My annotated game should be up shortly.

Guelph Winter Pro-Am

On February 6 and 7, I will be participating in the Guelph chess tournament U2000 section.  I am optimistic about my chances here, partly because I have done work, and will continue to do work, to shore up my opening weaknesses that were apparent in the Hart House tournament.  Also, with every tournament comes more experience, which for me is an invaluable tool considering my rating is not yet even established.  During my hours spent playing blitz chess lately, I have discovered some holes in my Caro-Kann which are certainly unpleasant, but I have taken the time to brush up on all of the lines.

This is a five round tournament with the first game played at 60/30 and the next four at 90/30.  My goal is to play creative positional chess where I always look toward the ending where I can scrape out an edge.   I will surely annotate at least one game from this event, and perhaps more if I feel good about my play.

If this post looks a bit different than the others, it is because I tried using a windows feature instead of blogger.com.  I hope this works.

Technorati Tags: Update

Blog Overhaul

I got bored with the previous scheme, so I decided to create a different layout and different colours. That's all I have to say this time/

Sun Tzu Agrees

I just came across a Sun Tzu quote that seems to support my previous post about the importance of learning strategy before tactics. I know he was talking about war, and I am speaking of chess, but the two are closely tied, and kings used to play chess to prepare their minds for war. The message is clear, don't be flashy, just make sure you get the job done.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. -Sun Tzu

Opening Inaccuracies

Throughout my learning process, I have always been drawn to the study of opening variations. Many people would argue that the study of the opening in chess development is destructive to your game, proposing the question, "What do you do when your opening knowledge runs out?". I will answer this question with another belief contrary to modern chess development theory. The answer is simple; study the strategic principles which govern all chess positions. Learn about support points, how to limit enemy counterplay, how to use space to your advantage, ect. Don't listen to the guys that say you have to slave over a tactics book looking for pins, forks, discoveries and skewers, because then you are missing what chess is all about. If you know how to launch a vicious kingside attack but put no pieces on the queenside just because you don't know strategic principles, your opponent will just calmly tuck his king away with a queenside castle. The point I want to make is that if you know strategy, your pieces will be in the right spots and you will always have a plan once your opening knowledge runs out. And as an added bonus, it will be difficult for your opponent to exploit your Maroczy Bind when you've shoved a knight on d5.

So I have been browsing through opening databases for the better part of two years now (notice how I say browsing; you don't have to memorize lines 20 moves deep if you only run into them once in a while), and I began my chess learning by reading Yasser Seirawan's book Winning Chess Strategy (Strategies perhaps??). According to myself, I am well positioned for chess growth. I also reccommend playing a healthy amount of internet blitz chess (?!-more controversy) and whenever you lose quickly out of an opening, go look up the correct line. You may be surprised at how much this deepens your knowledge.

Well, it looks like I think that I have all the tools to play strong chess, but what happens when one of those tools fails? What if you loose your way because of a distraction or just plain forgetfulness? I have already shown you my hideous opening against Dalia Kagramanov (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 e6?) and I have made a few others in the dragon (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 O-O 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.O-O-O Rc8 11.Bb3 Nc4 12.Bxc4 Rxc4 13.Bh6?- in view of 13... Nxe4! (sorry for the long line)). When something lioke this happens, just fall back on strategic principles. Don't try to blow the opponent off of the board with tactics, because odds are the tactics won't work because your opponent will likely be more developped. In the opening, just take your time, you'll have plenty of time for the rest of the game.

A Break Ahead

Well it looks like there will not be any chess tournaments for me to enter in the next few months. I may not be posting frequently here in the next while because of that but if I feel the desire to share my thoughts on an opening or look at one of my games I suppose I will. The Corus chess tournament is coming up, and I expect it to be a thriller. I do not remember there being so many players in Group A under 2700 though, and I am curious to know why Levon Aronian is not going to be attending. I expect Magnus Carlsen to win this tournament, but Anand and Kramnik cannot be counted out. Well, only time will tell, and I will be following the tournament closely.