Friday, November 9, 2007

Mike Shpan Memorial - Round One

Atem - Kaptsan 0-1

11. Be3 gives Black a large positional advantage after 11...Nxe3, saddling White with weak doubled isolated e pawns.

Schulz - Weirda 1-0

In an equal position, John self-trapped his bishop with 16...Qe6

Campbell - Mundwiler 0-1

Less made a speculative piece sacrifice for two pawns, but Gary was doing well.

Ah, finally -- a surprising tactical chance !

After - 28...Na5


The computer finds 29. Nxf7 ! If 29...Kxf7 30. Rxe7+ Kg8 31. Qxg6 and it's all over.

Gary played 29. Qb1 which is good also and after 29...Nb3, Nxf7 is still there !

The turning oint was Gary's 36. Bh4; Qd1 would held a large advantage.

After 37. Nxc5

Les, interestingly, opted for 37...Rxc5+, instead of 37...Qxb3 which wins the Q. He probably was concerned with with ramifications of 38. Re8+, but the computer still gives a win to Black (even though it is Q and 2 pawns for R and two minors) after 38...Kh7 39. Rxc8 Qc3+ 40. Kb1 d3 and the d pawn will win one of the pieces. It is easy to see (now) that both the R and N are virtually paralysed.
In the game the outcome was still unclear until Gary blundered his Rook on move 43.


Oberton - Wood 1-0
Black's misplaced pieces quickly turned into material loss.

Arie Wasserman - Rutter 1-0
In this upset of the night, Blair failed to protect his advanced d pawn, lost it and then Arie exploited the d file to win pawn after pawn.

Kong - Lior Wasserman 1-0
Black gave up a pawn unfavourably, and White won.

Greenberg - Letain 1-0

Black allowed White to play de6; Harley exploited the weaknesses.

Crawford - Jim Green 0-1

A near upset. Gary was doing well throughout (although 33...Rxc4 is hard to meet), but lost the thread somewhat starting with with 36. Kh2. But he was still winning if he plays 40. b6.


Hanrahan - Fromme 0-1
Nigel has annotated this game at his blog - Exclam!Online

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