tournament report: HCC Classical Thursday, April-May 2022 - Round #3

Round 3 was full of excitement, sadness, and some very good chess! This is a long blog, and I moved the game between jpmunz and myself to the end, as I needed to do an in-depth analysis as a form of therapy! It's a very cool and instructive game though, so please read all the way through.

devbanana vs. E3Engineer: 0-1
This was a Scotch Game, in particular the Romanishin Variation in which Black checks with the bishop from b4 to provoke c3, thereby denying the white knight its preferred square on c3 (at least for a bit), and then simply going back to e7.

On the 13th move, White decided to overprotect the c4 pawn with the reasonable-looking move b3, as shown here. I assume the reason was to solidify the position and allow the two minor pieces defending c4 to move without dropping the pawn.

Whenever your opponent makes a move, it is useful to ask "what has changed?" A really important thing to asses is whether the move changes the number of attackers or defenders of another piece. The last move creates a significant change - the knight on c3 is now undefended. This is a tactical clue - if Black can make a move that threatens the c3 knight and simultaneously makes another threat, Black can probably get an advantage. So b3 wasn't necessarily a bad move, but it does require White to think about that "loose" knight on c3 going forward. One move later, White makes another move that allows an unexpected tactic.

Just as b3 left the knight undefended, Bg5 leaves the bishop undefended. Neither move is inherently bad, but combined they leave two White pieces undefended. Black noticed that and found a move that attacks both undefended pieces simultaneously:

Black won a pawn in the next few moves, and with that material advantage, a centralized queen, and the two bishops, the edge was sufficient to bring home the win.

Note that if White had tried Bxf6 after ...Qa5, Black still wins by playing ...Bxf6, pinning the knight to the rook on a1.

This is another instructive point. When White played b3, in addition to leaving the c3 knight unprotected, it also set up the ability to pin that knight to the rook on a1.

When you fall victim to tactics in your games, in addition to trying to figure out how you "missed" the opponent's move, the other very important question to ask yourself is "What did I do to enable tactics against me in my prior moves?"

I highly recommend the book "Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna: Know When (and where!) to Look for Winning Combinations" by Emmanuel Neiman, especially for developing players who are missing tactics. The eBook is $14.99 on ForwardChess, and for $24.95 you can get it and the MoveTrainer capabilities on chessable. To view a sample, you can look here: https://forwardchess.com/sample/tune-your-chess-tactics-antenna-know-when-and-where-to-look-for-winning-combinations . The New In Chess website also sells a paperback version.

danieljames-dj vs. datasmith: 1-0
This Sicilian Dragon followed a rather obscure line (but still in the Masters database), reaching this position after White's 13th move.

Black has done well in the opening, having achieved superior development (2 minor pieces + queen developed compared to White's 1 minor piece + queen), the better bishop due to the pawn structure, an extra central pawn, and a very usable half-open b-file pointing toward the Black king's castled position. Black is roughly 1.0 pawns better, according to Stockfish.

So what are the plans for each side? We have opposite side castling, and the plans should be very clear. White will try to open the h-file and then deliver checkmate with the queen and rook, with the help of the bishop and/or knight after some minor piece maneuvering. Black will try to open the a-file and/or b-file, barrage the White king with major pieces, and use the excellent bishop to help deliver mate. It is a race to see who can get there first.

Black, however, made an error by pushing the c-pawn instead of the a-pawn.

This pawn can still open the castled position, but it allows White's knight, which was previously unable to find a good square to both defend White's king and participate in an attack on Black's, to use the nice d5 square.

White should immediately play Nd5 here, attacking the queen and threatening to take on f6 as well, which forces Black to capture on d5. Black should capture here with the Bishop, as after Nxd5, exd5, Bd7, h4 Black is in trouble due to the knight no longer defending h7.

White, however, missed this move and started the attack early with h4, and Black missed ...c4! as a response, after which Black's attack is ahead of White's.

Instead Black blocked the h-pawn's advance with ...Nh5.

(Ironically, last week @datasmith played ...Nh5, the losing move in his game. I have told him he is not allowed to play ...Nh5 for at least 6 weeks in any other games. I expect he will not listen, and may likely beat me by playing ...Nh5 later in this tournament.)

This move doesn't really slow White down though, as White could now play g4 followed by h5 and be a move ahead of Black in attacking.

White, however, chose a different line, sacrificing a piece a few moves later, when we reached this position:

As is often the situation in mutual storms on opposite-side castled kings, one tempo is enough to decide the game. In the above position, Stockfish puts White ahead by 5.5 pawns by playing h5!, but if Black had the move, Black would be ahead by 6.0 pawns by playing ...c4! How odd, with no viable captures and no viable checks on the board for either player, one half-move still makes all the difference.

In the game, after h5 and c4 were played, White found the excellent move f4!, reaching this position:

This move blocks Black's idea of playing ...Qe3+, forcing a queen trade, when Black's extra material would have been decisive. Instead, Black must now still play ...Qe3+ and trade the queen for a rook to avoid getting mated. With a decisive material advantage, White went on to win in a few more moves.

Quite an exciting, fighting game, and bravo to the attacking spirit of both players!

lythnade vs. FaveAgba: 0-1
This game featured my least favorite opening to play against, the Pirc Defense (yet another reason I play 1. d4 these days...). The game left book very quickly, and we reached the following position, with White to move:

Here White should have castled. Black would still have an edge due to the awkwardly-placed bishop on d3, but there would still be plenty of play in the position. Instead, White moved the bishop for a 2nd time to c4, to which Black should have responded with ...b5 and ...c5, reaching the following position:

Here Black would have had a substantial edge due to the increased space on the queenside and could have completed development with moves such as Bb7, Nc6 (and maybe to d4), Qb6, rooks to b8 and c8, and then the advance of the c or b pawn. White would be hard-pressed to find a plan or favorable pawn break while Black conducted the above maneuvers.

Instead, Black played ...Be6, allowing White to trade bishops favorably. White declined however, and in the following position White played Ng5, losing the bishop on c4.

With a material advantage in hand, Black continued to a nice win, checkmating on move 34. If you want to watch an unusual White king journey during a mating attack, play out the moves from this position to the end.

meekysmeek vs. SAUSJULIAN: 0-1
In this game our club member who thinks classical chess should be played at bullet speed did not disappoint, finishing with nearly 1:08 minutes on the clock while playing the Black pieces. I am a bit concerned with how strong this player could become if they spent some time thinking about moves, as this was a nice win.

This one was a Queen's Pawn Game, Chigorin Variation, and after the 6th move we reached the following position:

In such positions, the attacker in me always looks at moves like g4!?, which in this case actually seems to be the best move, if you believe Stockfish. There are actually 3 games in the Masters database where this was played.

The clues to me are that White can push g4 and potentially g5, bumping both of Black's defending pieces out of the way, and even if the g-pawn is lost, White has the open g-file to work with as compensation. Also, the light-squared bishop has only a few squares available, so it can be harassed with plans such as advancing the h-pawn. Imagine queenside castling, the rooks on g1 and h1, the pawn advancing to g5 and making the knight move back to d7 or e8, the queen coming to h5, etc. It is very unlikely Black can bring an equivalent number of pieces to the kingside as quickly to put up a defense. Black's best play here is to play ..Bxe5 and simplify, but let's look at what would happen if Black played passively and just defended.

This is much easier to play for White, who Stockfish says is nearly 3 pawns ahead. Good stuff, fun to play if you are White, and in this case, actually sound!

White played less like a blood-thirsty savage and developed the remaining bishop to b5. As it has no targets there and is susceptible to pawn attacks that gain space for Black, Be2 would have been preferred.

A few moves later, we reach this position after Black has played ...Nbd7.

White castled just 6 seconds after Black's move. While this isn't a bad move, it missed a tactical opportunity, and most of us really can't see tactical opportunities and judge their accuracy so quickly. If White had followed the rule of asking "What did my opponent's move change?", they would have noticed that the c-pawn is now singly-defended but doubly-attacked. That means there MIGHT be a tactical opportunity by capturing on c6 with either the knight or the bishop. Let's take a moment and look at both options to see if either works.

First the bishop capture.

If you play through the above forced sequence, you'll see this doesn't work out very well. Black as a knight for 2 pawns, a big lead in development, very active pieces, 3 half-open files to work with, and a safe king. Stockfish says Black is up by 5.5 pawns at the end of the 15th move.

Now the knight capture.

Aha! Capturing with the knight create two simultaneous threats: 1) capturing the queen and 2) capturing the undefended bishop on d6. As the above lines show, Black loses two pawns by recapturing the knight and doesn't do much better declining to capture it. Play out the above variations in the diagram to see how rich the tactics are here.

Going back to the game, within a few moves Black had won a couple of pieces and closed out the game nicely for the win.

jpmunz vs. BigData1969: 1-0
Oh what might have been! This is the game that kept me up all knight (sorry for that joke). I hope at least I may have a chance at winning the "Most Unfortunate Demise" prize for this loss. This would have been the highest-rated opponent I had beaten, but alas... Anyway, there are MANY instructive aspects to this game, so let's jump in.

We take a step back in time to the Old Sicilian, reaching the same position JP and I reached in our one other encounter, which ended in a draw (at least that was the highest-rated DRAW that I've had!):

In our last game I played the very interesting ...Bd6, but I assumed JP had something planned as an improvement over our first game, so I decided to let him put his bishop where he wanted to, on f4, and I simply developed with ...Rc8. A few moves later, we reached this position:

Remember how in the notes to the last game I mentioned liking g-pawn attacks in such positions? I took a hard look at it in this position. I can definitely push both ...g5 and then ...g4, driving both pieces away from the White king's defense and leaving White with cramped minor pieces and difficultly reorganizing them - especially the Bishop on a2, which will be useless defending against a kingside attack. I can reinforce my pawn advances with with ...h5 and ...Nf6. If White pushes e5 to chase my knight away, I have the long diagonal for my light-squared bishop. If I lose a pawn, I have the open g-file. Too many temptations to not go for it! (Also, as I write this, I am letting Stockfish analyze, and to my happy surprise it chooses ...g5 as the best move after thinking for quite awhile!). A few moves later, I was very happy with the position:

Not only do I have kingside attack options, but also I have ...Nd4 coming (another benefit of chasing the White knight off of f3). If Black captures on d4, I add the bishop pair and a half-open c-file with a rook on it to my advantages. I was smiling! Then White surprised me with f4.

At first I was confused - why is he letting me open the g-file? Then I looked at the following move sequence and resulting position:

White is very solid here with many pieces defending the area around the King, and White and is threatening Nd5 (or even better Bd5), when I can't capture due to exd5+. My king is suddenly exposed in the center, and I don't see a good plan for Black. Against a player of JP's caliber, I would likely be ground down painfully.

Let me talk about that topic a bit - what to do when you have an inferior position against a higher-rated player. Do you play solidly and defensively and hope to hold on, or do you complicate things? I am always in favor of complicating things. High-rated players don't make a lot of simple mistakes. They keep their pieces protected by other pieces, they don't stay in pins they can't manage, and aren't afraid to take you into an endgame and slowly outplay you. But they still make errors, both in strategy and in calculation, except at very high levels. So here, I had to choose between the objectively best move of ...gxf3 or the more complicated move ...h5, when I knew e5! was coming next. My choice was a practical one, hoping the complications might give me more options to make good moves and my opponent more options to make sub-optimal ones. Shortly thereafter, I had to figure out where to retreat my knight.

White was, I am sure, salivating at the idea of Nd4, Ng5, and then f5, obliterating my center, freeing the light-squared bishop, and finishing me off in style. So I chose ...Nh7, which gave me no real prospects of redeploying the knight quickly, but that did make it more risky to play Nd5->g5. A couple moves later and we reach this position.

I am worse here, but there are LOTS of things for White to think about. In addition to potentially opening the position with various pawn advances on the kingside, queenside, and center, I'm threatening to solidify my position with ...Nf5 on the next move. It's not really that much of a threat, but it would ease my game. Faced with a variety of options, White chose simplification and solid play, trading on d4, followed by Nb3, and then Kh1. In the meantime, I was able to protect the d-pawn and then surprise my my own strong f-pawn push.

Suddenly, White is in real trouble. Any move of the knight gives Black devastating control of the long diagonal and all the prospects. So White had to play exf6, after which White was at another crossroads.

Retreating the knight is passive and dangerous, and trading on f6 is probably the best move. In both cases Stockfish has Black up more than 2 pawns, with strong attacking prospects. White chose to follow the "complicate things" rule that I endorsed above and played Ng5, but it didn't work out well.

Here I saw my chance - get my knight that was so recently horribly confined to h7 to e3 with threats on the queen, the rook, and most importantly the king. A few moves later, Black had a crushing position, but with only a little over 17 minutes on the clock.

The above position is very tactically-rich, and I did what my coach has taught me - calculate forcing moves: first checks, then captures, then simple threats. So I looked at ...Bxg2+ and decided to play it because of the following sequence of moves.

Oh how proud I felt! I was going to get my highest-rated win, and with a rather beautiful move. After thinking for 2 minutes, White just moved the king to g1 instead.

In retrospect, I should have been very happy - White agreed my sacrifice was sound. I should have just moved my bishop back to b7 and then played Qc6 next move, mating on h1 or winning a ton of additional material. But I was shaken by the sacrifice not being taken, and I realized that now White COULD take the bishop on the next move since ...Qb7 would no longer pin the rook. I spent way too much precious time looking at all my other bishop moves and missed the idea of just mating on the long diagonal by backing up. So I picked a very poor square of f3 for the bishop. White calmly played c3, about the only active move in the position. Again I faced a decision point in what was becoming a complicated time-pressure game.

I played ...e5, with the belief that if I kept my knight and bishop on e3 and f3, White had no way to get counterplay. Not the best move, but it still gave me an edge. White played a very good human move - Nd2- that Stockfish doesn't like, but I do, preparing to get the knight to the f6 outpost while freeing the bishop on a2. For the first time in the game, White's minor pieces have some play. After a couple of additional moves, I had gotten my queen and one rook into the action, and White had repositioned the knight on an optimal square.

I'm down to 5 minutes here and am stressing mightily! I made a quick decision to take off the extremely strong knight, as I could get the pawn back as well and keep material equal (a knight and 2 pawns for my rook).

Black is still much better here, but in my haste for material equality, I missed a crushing move. Instead of my taking the pawn on f6, what can you find in this position?

DON'T SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU WANT TO SEE THE SOLUTION!

The immediate winning move here is simply ...g3!

Tomorrow I will review this game with my coach, who will say to me about a thousand times ALWAYS TRY TO FIND 3 MOVES!!!!! in a position. I am currently disciplined enough to do that in most situations, but apparently not in big games under time pressure. I know what I need to work on. But wow, missing this hurts! It would have been such a beautiful finish, especially if White took the bishop on f3. :-)

Back to the game! I am still much better, but I don't even see the ...g3 idea and never look at it in the coming moves. I work to get my last rook into the game, but in doing so I allow White to pin both my knight and my bishop, and White takes advantage and gets the White bishop mobilized with the excellent Bd5!

And now finally White activates the queen and goes on a King hunt. Black is still better, but not by much.

I realize that I have to find shelter for my King to avoid perpetual check (or worse), and I decide this wild game deserves nothing other than my King trying to help mate White's king. So off to h4/h3 I go!

What a position! I've only seen things like this in either blitz/bullet or high-level classical chess. My mind is thinking of #chesspunks best game of the year awards for the beauty and originality of my attack - a luxury I did not have with only 1 minute on the clock to White's 13 minutes!

In time pressure, I wasn't looking at alternatives at all, or I would have easily found ...Qf6! Instead I took my king to h3 and then trapped it with ...h4, allowing White to pin the g-pawn that I should have advanced for the win 11 moves ago.

Here, breaking the pin with ...Nf5 or ...Rf5 is essential, as White is threatening Rxf3, after which I can't capture due to the pin on the g-pawn. But in time pressure I missed the threat and lost a lot of material.

Finally, the smoke has cleared. I still have only a bit over a minute on my clock, but White has 10 minutes, plus a large material lead. My attack is over. Then the following position came up:

Here, my opponent played Kh1??, I smiled, and I triumphantly played ...Nf2#!! Except I didn't, because lichess doesn't let you move your knight to checkmate your opponent when your knight is pinned to your king! Crushed and out of time, I played a bad move and it was over quickly. I now see that I had a chance to try for a swindle that is neat enough to show you.

Here, if I had played ...Rg2, White would need to ignore the threat to the b-pawn, because Rb1?? allows me to force a perpetual check (or even more if White won't accept the draw).

Other rook moves win, as do various queen moves.

That was cathartic to analyze and share that game with all of you. I am sad but proud - one of the best I've ever played, except in a couple of spots. This is a lesson that the PROCESS of candidate move selection is incredibly important and frankly can predominate SKILL in many cases.

And to my opponent, I must both congratulate you on your tenacity and thank you for being my partner in the wonderfully fun game.

So, after all of that, here are our standings after 3 rounds:

3 - jpmunz
2.5 - E3Engineer
2 - BigData1969, sourbaum, danieljames-dj
1.5 FaveAgba, perryand1971, jcss64, devbanana, denisbouchard, hodjon
1 - markdrury, datasmith, SAUSJULIAN, rush_graysonX, chavezo
0.5 ahmad_raja, lythande
0 - meekysmeek, SabreRef

I hope we see all of your in Round 4 - newcomers are still welcome and can win any of the prizes