January TNT Round 1

Well, I am slowly catching up on past games. The result of my laziness was evident in the February sectional as I let several half points slip through my hands. I had been attributing my recent good results to the work I had been doing looking at all these Winnipeg games with a critical eye; my theory is now supported - until the next tournament.

Anyway - on to the games/positions of note

Round 1

Silva - Lipnowski DRAW

It is not often that one can drop a piece to Sam and still draw. Silva goes in for a dubious manouevre with 26.Nh5 (instead 26. Ra1 is fine) and drops a piece. Somehow Silva is able to hold the ending, despite rejecting forced draws at 57.Qxg6+ and 59. Qg5+. I can only guess that time trouble may have been a factor for at least one of the players.

Mundwiler - Wierda 1-0
Les drove his knight through traffic down to d6. John gave up an exchange unnecessarily and soon the position opened up ending in a nice combination - White is even a pawn down in the final position !

Position after 35. Rxd7

Wood - Lauritson 0-1

My initial impression is that both players missed several chances.
25...Qxd4 appears to win a piece. 27...Qe4+ covers the h7 pawn.
There are some lines for White that the computer finds that give him a big advantage but I do not think it is fair to think us mortals could find our way through those lines. Exercise for the reader: put your engine on the position after the computer move 31. Qxf6+ and try to guess the computer's next moves.

Tang - Aaron Green 1-0

Black kept sacrificing pieces trying to conjure up a mate, but to no avail.

Liu - Trueman 1-0
Another King's Indian player prematurely sacrifices a piece.

Magnusson - Cleto 0-1
A sacfest resulted in White with a queen and rooks against two minors and rooks.
But White seemed to not see the idea of coming around to the Queenside via h8 and mating Black. For example, 37. Qh8+ Ke7 38. Qb8 and Black has no solution. A few moves later White moved into Black's mating net.

Atem-Letain 1-0
When it was looking very grim, Black missed a resource 26...Rac8 which gave him at least an equal game.

Deng - L. Gibbons 1-0
Not sure why this is 1-0 given the game score. It is difficult for Black but certainly not over yet.

A look at the games from the Kent Oliver Memorial

Final Round

Prince-Lipnowski 0-1
When the zug didn't zwischen. White's 14. Be3 was met with a nasty surprise.

Remillard - Nikouline 0-1
White dropped a pawn for nothing on move 16, and a second pawn a few moves later.

Kaptsan - Liu 1-0
Black "castled into it".

Bince - Khedkar 1-0
White missed an early chance; 8. Ng5 would have been hard to meet.
Black did not play 22. ... Nxa4 with a large advantage ? or 23...Rxd1 and Nxe4. Time trouble ?
Even 33. Nh5 is strange when Qb8+ mates in 1. Perhaps there is a game score error.

Einarsson - Atem DRAW
White missed playing 25. f3 with good prospects. The players played the Q and pawn ending accurately.

Greenberg - Rutter DRAW
White had an advantage all game until 20.d5 and soon the draw was agreed.

Crawford - Jim Green 0-1
White made a serious unforced error in a dynamically equal position.

Goodman - Gannon 0-1
I thought White had to try something like 26. exf5 to clarify the position (and not lose a pawn), and at 28. White to try cxb6 or cxd6, but I guess Black's Qe4+ looked scary. And at 30. White has to try cxb6 or cxd6 and hope for a mistake by Black. Desperate times call for desperate actions.

Letain - Gibbons 1-0
Black had to try 12...Ne5 or more importantly 15...f6

A look at the games from the Kent Oliver Memorial

Round 4

Nikouline -Lipnowski 0-1
These two continued their theoretical battle from the Yanofsky Memorial. (I still hvae to go back on comment on those games)

more to come

Atem - Prince 0-1
White created his own very pawn at e3. Black had a nice forcing option(not played) 21...Nh3+ 22. Kh1 Ng4 23. Bxg4 Bxg4 and there all sorts of back rank mates and other lines that win more material.
Later White did not see to the end of his Queen "sacrifice" 23. Qxd5 as a couple of Black checks save the pinned Queen.

Liu - Remillard DRAW

I normally don't comment on openings here, but when Black omits d6, shouldn't White play 5. e5 ? (Chess grammar question - where do you put the question mark if you are not annotating the move ?). White had a positional advantage for most the game - but released all the tension with 30. h6+. Is there a notation error - 40. Kc2 hangs a pawn, but Kc3 does not ? also 51. Nd1 does not look the right move.

Jim Green - Kaptsan 0-1
Aron told me the critical moment was around moves 23 -25 when he forced Jim into either defending a weak c pawn or giving up the g pawn.

Khedkar - Goodman 1-0
Black lost an exchange early.

Rutter - Einarsson DRAW
Black is winning in the final position - I am not sure if time was a factor.

Greenberg - Letain 1-0
Harley must have had a preminition that he was going to be the beneficiary of his opponents error. Althought he was down a pawn, he kept on trading off pieces in violation of an old chess maxim. Black should have taken a second pawn on move 16. Eventually Black blundered a piece

A look at the games from the Kent Oliver Memorial

Round 3

Turning points

Kaptsan - Nikouline 0-1
Aron went wrong by not playing 18. g3. Instead, Black got activity starting with Bxh2+ and won.

Lipnowski - Khedkar 1-0
Black starting drifting in what appeared to be an equal position. Once White's rook got the d file Black had difficulty defending.

Prince -Rutter 1-0
Black had an enormous advantage as late as move 23 when 23...Bxa4 seems logical. Black made a serious misstep with 24...Kg7 instead of Kg8, and compounded the error by playing 25...Bxe6.

Bince - Liu DRAW
The computer tries 38...g5 ! to stop the perpetual. The point is that after 39. Bxg5+, White can not check on f4 and Black gains a tempo. But even if Weixi considered g5, it is difficult to figure out the consequences over the board.

Gannon-Atem 0-1
Black unneccessarily sacrificed the exchanged, only to have White blunder it back on move 39 with result that Black ends up with a passed a pawn and domination of the dark squares. White
could have put some resistance, but 49. Qxd6 resulted in White getting mated.

Remillard - Greenberg 1-0
Black got a horrid position in the opening.

Goodman - Jim Green DRAW
The players locked up the pawn chains. I thought that White should leave the rooks on, and instead of 35. hg5, start the manouvre Bf3-d1-c2-b1-a2 ---what it Black going to do ? Instead the rooks came off and and at first glance it looks like a dead draw after 38. Bf3

Black played 38...Kg7. But what about 38...Nxc5 ! and it looks like Black wins.

Einarsson - Desjarlais 1-0
14...cxd4 would regain the pawn Black lost earlier, but soon lost a second pawn and the game.

Letain- Crawford 1-0
Not sure what happened after move 40 as Black squandered his won position. 41...Rc8 is not necessary, simply gf5 is sufficient, on the next move the extra bishop was left en prise. Black still had chances to hold the draw, first with 46...Kg6

A look at the games from the Kent Oliver Memorial

Round 2
Turning points

Liu - Lipnowski DRAW
Weixi held his much higher opponent to draw quite easily.

Atem - Kaptsan 0-1
James blundered a piece when he was at least equal

Greenberg - Prince 0-1
White had to play 21.fe3 with a good game. He was still ok until he missed 27. Qf7

Deslarlais - Gannon 0-1
Going through this without the computer I think I spotted about 6 real good puzzle positions, all with White to win. I'll get back to this game later. [Well, I guess that shows you how sharp I was in early February - I was wrong, wrong, wrong.] But 21. Bc5 removing the defender of d8 is strong.

Remillard - L. Gibbons 1-0
White missed 17.Rxd5 and Black appears to have resigned prematurely at move 20.

A look at the games from the Kent Oliver Memorial

Round 1
Turning points

Lipnowski - Jim Green 1-0
This game was equal until the late middlegame when Black starting drifting.
Black missed taking the initiative after 35. Rc4

the c pawn is attacked, but Black has the surprising

35...Rd8 ! with the idea 36. Nxc5 Rd5 (notice that mate is threatened) 37. Ne4 Rf5+ 38. Ke3 Rfe5 and Black wins material as f5 is threatened and the c5 square will be available for nasty forks.

In the game, Black also had the strong 38...f5 which embarasses White's pieces.
Black appeared to be playing for the draw but loses his way with 48...Rdd7, when Re7 should hold the draw (if Black had enough time on the clock).

Gannon - Nikouline 0-1
Alex was in some trouble but 21. Qc5 + wastes a critical tempo, forcing Black to vacate the f8 square where the queen rook will soon appear.

Kaptsan - Remillard 1-0
Black threw away the draw with 63...Be3; Kc7 should be good enough to get over to Ke7 in time.

Letain - Atem 0-1
After 40...Kc5 41. Bg1+ looks winning for White.

Mike Shpan Final Round

Mundwiler - Atem 0-1

White was in big trouble for a long time until James went pawn grubbing with 47...Nxf5.
But it was still tricky for White. As severe time trouble neared, White blundered.

Les and James ended up sharing first place with 5-1

Greenberg - Schulz 0-1

14. Nd2 can't be correct (I think Nxe5 is required), but Black somewhat returned the favour by not playing 16...Nxc5. White eventually stepped into a mate in a roughly equal position.

Kwiatek - Fromme 0-1

In the position below


Black played the startling 11...Bxa3 ! Move of the night !
After 12. Rxa3 Nb4 Black will end up material ! Black went on to win.

Schulz and Fromme finished 3rd-4th with 4.5 points.

Kong - Kaptsan 0-1
Perhaps a historic moment in recent Manitoba chess - I don't think Aron has ever played anyone 70 years younger than him ! But the burning question is, how old is Costales ?

Hanrahan - Oberton 0-1
White initiated a dubious combination that led to an interesting material imbalance. From then on both players played well, but White eventually lost on time. Nigel has some commentary at his Exclam ! blog.

Rutter - Campbell 1-0
Black left his e5 pawn en prise, which was the beginning of the end.

Green, Jim - Wasserman, Arie 0-1
White lost the thread in the endgame and got his Rook locked in on the queenside. White is lost after 35. d5. Note that after the game's 36. Rc3, a quick end could be obtained by 36...Rxc3 37. bc3 b4 ! and White's king is too far away to prevent a queen.

Kernetsky - Trueman 1-0
Due to a forfeit and a bye, neither player had an opponent. So they decided to have a game !

Swift- Weirda 0-1

I observed some of this game; it looked interesting. Unfortunately, I could not reconstruct it from the scoresheet

Grand Prix Final Round

Group A
No games. Boron wins the tourney, Sam Lipnowski second, Jay Khedkar third.

Group B

Van Wyk - Lauritson 0-1 Lauritom win tourney with 5.0 - Van Wyk second with 4.5

White had a large advantage after 22...Re6. Black looks to be overloaded.

23. Nc4 should win decisive material. Eventually Black untangled himself, but the game ended abruptly om move 39 perhaps because of White flagging ? Does anybody know ?

Pottinger - Silva 0-1

White lost a knight early.

Group C

Booth - Wiebe 0-1

Did White miss a mate in two starting with 17. Qxg6 +, or is the game score wrong ?
After that Black defended well and won.
So Wiebe won the tourney with an undefeated 4 wins and 2 draws. Weixi Liu was second with 4 points.

Gannon - Liu - DRAW

White held a definitive advantage when a draw was agreed.

Group D

Magnusson - Gibbons 1-0

Lorne likes to toy with his opponents before giving away the point. He could have won this group.

Green, Aaron - Gibson 1-0
White converted the large advantage he obtained in the opening, and also won the tourney with 4.5. Magnusson was second with 4.

Mike Shpan Memorial Round 5

Les is more (likely to win the tournament than any one else !)

Fromme- Les Mundwiler 0-1

I must confess that originally I didn't know what was going on in this game. 25 moves and White's queenside is still undeveloped.

The turning point may have come after 25...Bf5

White played 26. Ne1, but 26. a5 is very interesting with variations where White is probably not worse.
28...Re6! is a nice move, "sacrificing" a knight, to build a mating net, and/or win the exchange. Nice finish by Les.

Schulz - Kaptsan 1-0

Kaptsan trotted out the Blumenfeld gambit, but never got counterplay.

Atem - Jim Green 0-1

I didn't like the maneuovre 18...Nd3 and 19..Nc5, trading a good knight for a knight on the rim, and ending up with weak c and b pawns.

Greenberg - Kernetsky 1-0

White converted his space advantage into material gain.

Crawford - Kong 0-1

They shoot horses, don't they ? White's knight on the rim had no way back.

Wood - Hanrahan 0-1

When I looked at this game, I liked 25. h5+, followed by Qf5+ and Bxh6. See the Exclam ! blog for full notes from Nigel. White had an absolutely won game, but couldn't find 30. Rf7. One of those games where the winner did nothing and won !

Campbell - Trueman 1-0

They shoot horses don't they, part 2. Francis dropped a knight.

Leor Wasserman - John Weirda 0-1