Saturday, March 28, 2009

March 2009 TNT Round 3

Lipic - Lauritson 0-1
White could have coordinated his position with 16.Nxe4 Nxe4 17. Rae1.
Stephen asks about alternatives to 19. g5. White's king position is precarious, I think White should clarify in centre first. 19. c4 looks reasonable. In the game White opens up lines that Black uses for a mating attack.

Kernetsky - Greenberg 1-0
13. Nxd6 has been played at tleast three times before, but 13...Qa6 is a novelty. I walked by the board while Black was contemplating his 13th- 13...Qxb2 seems logical and is the move played in the other three games in my database. Black later get the a-pawn, but at the cost of a piece.

Wierda - Strehlow 1-0
The game score gets muddled just as the position gets interesting.

Jim Green - Einarsson 0-1
I was watching this game up until around move 16, and when saw the players in the post-mortem I assumed White had won.

What I didn't see was that in the following position, White played

18. Bxf8 (18. dxc4 is better) and Black uncorked 18...Nce3 !, and soon hoovered up some more pawns before White resigned after 25 moves.

Boron - Aaron Green 1-0
Black's king's knight gets kicked around the board, allowing White to build up a winning attack.
15...Nd4 had to be tried. 18. hxg6 is an inaccuracy - 18. Qh6 which I noted immediately in the post-mortem, wins easily.

Swift-Khedkar 0-1
White allows himself to be saddled with double isolated f-pawns; as a result he is doomed in the ending.

Campbell - Rutter 0-1
White is absolutely in control; by move 30, he is a up a solid advanced passed pawn (and could have won another with 30.Qxe5) - but he eventually lost on time.

Ott - Wiebe DRAW
White missed a few moves that are probably winning 31. Re8+ leads to a Queen vs R and B ending, but converting it to a win would take some effort.
But in the final position, Black will to give up his Q for a R. I don't understand how a draw was agreed.

Ari Wasserman - de Groot 0-1
Another game with double isolated f-pawns.

Wood - Magnusson DRAW
Gibbons-Milord 0-1
Leah Green - Trinidad DRAW
Leor Wasserman - Evans 1-0

all games have muddled gamescores

Menard - Trueman 0-1
White misses that his fianchettoed Q will be attacked by discovered check.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Fritz recommended Qh5 instead of the bishop sacrifice. It is a draw-ish position but I believe I win the exchange, Black's counter-play against the exposed king is strong.

Unknown said...

I spoke to Daniel about his game afterward. He said that a few moves earlier White offered a draw and Black declined. When the final position was reached, Daniel offered the draw in return, and White accepted. Sort of a swindle in the end, clearly R. Ott didn't properly assess the position at the time.

Unknown said...

Actually, Daniel's game reminds me of an article I read about the psychology of chess.

Because Richard had offered a draw earlier in the game, he had mentally decided that the game was drawn and that he had no way of pressing an advantage.

So he was no longer looking for a way to dig himself out of the draw.

It's an interesting result because I think we all tend to resign ourselves to our "fate" now and again.

I believe the best way to put it is: "You don't win games by resigning."

Chess Manitoba said...

Yes 20. Qh5 is worth a try.
Certainly not drawish.