
All the time in the world - but enough time to win?
My games from the Gonzaga Charity Chess ClassicOn January 17th-19th, I was on the grounds of an elite private school for the Gonzaga Charity Chess Classic, my third year competing. Not only is Gonzaga an elite private school, but also has one of the best chess clubs in the country. The games were played in a large sports hall that oddly had a climbing wall right next to where I played.
An English journey to the Mediterranean
In the first round, I was paired against a much higher rated opponent, but this didn't worry me because I had played (and beaten) him over a year ago when we were both 1100s. The game opened with an English but it gradually transposed into a Catalan. It's common in the Catalan for White to leave the c4 pawn undefended because although Black can take, it's often more trouble than it's worth trying to hold onto the extra pawn. But because my opponent hadn't directly played the Catalan perhaps he wasn't as familiar with how to punish Black for taking the pawn. As the move order was different, maybe I would have time to develop my pieces and defend c6 before White could mobilise their pieces.
I decided to go for it and take the pawn and when my opponent took about 10 minutes to respond, I was feeling confident. In fact, my opponent spent a long time on his next few moves, until they had less than 30 minutes left on their clock, while I had over an hour. White had a strong centre and more space, but no clear target to attack, so I was content to hold my position and just develop. I had a passed pawn so I could just slowly move my Knight into the centre and let the clock tick down.
Unfortunately, I got too complacent and White won back the pawn on move 18 with a tactic I had seen and blocked two moves earlier (I had been meaning to play a6 at some point, but never got around to it). But I was going into an even endgame with a huge time advantage so maybe my opponent would get desperate and make a mistake. My biggest problem was that White's pawns were all on dark squares so my Bishop could do very little. I considered placing it on b6 or pushing g6 to give it space in that direction but I never suceeded in making it useful.
White doubled their Rooks and brought the Bishop into the attack, first winning a pawn and then an exchange. I was in trouble but my opponent was running out of time, so maybe I could just hold on. My position was weak but my pieces could just about keep White out. My opponent's time fell to less than a minute and he was completely reliant on the 30 second increment to keep him in the game.
Unfortunately, although he had time pressure, I was the one who blundered. I was using my Knight to harass his Rooks and g3 was a target. He traded his Bishop for my Knight and at the time I was glad to be rid of his pesky Bishop, but it turns out my Knight was a key part of my defence. Now the Rook could advance to the 7th rank to disrupt my position and escort his d-pawn to promotion. My passed c-pawn never turned out useful and White won the game.
Don't be afraid of ghosts
My second opponent was another familiar face, as we played four months ago at the City of Dublin (and I played his father at Gonzaga last year). I played the Slav in response to his Queen's Gambit and it was fairly standard until move 10 when I traded my Knight for his Bishop and doubled his f-pawns. This gave me a target so my Knight gradually worked its way from c8 to e6. White took a surprisingly aggressive approach by lifting their Rook to g3, but they left the pawn on d4 undefended. Could I risk taking the pawn or should I be more worried about White's attack?
In his books, Jeremy Silman warns against being afraid of ghosts, i.e. threats that look scary but can't actually harm you. Between the Queen, Rook and Knight all hanging around my King, it looks scary, but White doesn't have a concrete target. My Knight can take the pawn and then jump back to defend g7. There's no easy way for the White Knight to join the attack and if needs be, I can take it with my Bishop. White's attack looks scary, but it's just a ghost.
Even when White brought their second Rook, I defended with my Queen and there was no way to break through. Not only was my position secure, but my opponent was burning through their time until they only had half as much time on the clock as me. With the attack blocked, I started to move my Queen and Rook to get counter-play and won a second pawn. Again, I was worried that it could be a poisoned pawn, but I was able to bring my Queen back to defend. Now I had a two pawn advantage and both of them were connected passed pawns, so I felt I was winning.
Both of us moved our Knights to active squares and we both won exchanges (which probably could have been avoided). I was happy to trade off because I knew an endgame was winning. However, the last time I played this opponent I had a winning position but lost due to carelessness and I was determined not to let that happen again. We traded Queens and although I only had an advantage of one pawn, my position was far superior. My pawns would be very difficult to stop, whereas White's pawns would have a far harder time. But I still played it safe and shut down any attempts at counter-play by White until I eventually succeeded in promoting to a Queen and winning the game.
Can I hold my lead?
In game 3, I faced the highest rated opponent I would play in the tournament. As the game began, I was slightly unnerved as my opponent blitzed out his moves, the moment I made a move, he would immediately respond as if he had it all memorised. Opposite side castling in the Scandinavian can lead to some dangerous positions and Black was quickly gathering pieces in front of my King. On move 8, I made an important move and slid my Queen out of the way of the Black Rook (to avoid the pin) and behind my Bishop (to support moving it to f4). The engine calls it a mistake but it turned out to be a very helpful move and forced my opponent to stop and think (once again giving me a time advantage).
We traded Bishops and I felt my position was safe with enough defenders around my King. Then my opponent took me by surprise by sacrificing their Knight on d4 with the idea of pushing a pawn to d5 to fork me and win back the piece. The move was completely unexpected to me and as I studied the position, it seemed flawed. Sure enough, we traded pieces and then on move 14, I found the crucial Queen check which allowed me to retake with my Knight saving a piece.
When the dust settled, I was up a Knight for a pawn against a very strong opponent. I had never beaten an 1800 before, was I about to achieve my best victory yet? I tried to stay clam and play solid moves (like Rook to d1 to keep the Black Rook away from the 2nd rank). I pushed my b-pawn towards the enemy King and suceeded in leaving Black with an isolated c-pawn.
But Black had counter-play and pushing the passed e-pawn could be dangerous if I wasn't careful. I blocked with my Knight, which was somewhat awkward, but it prevented Black from getting onto the back rank, while my Rooks took the initiative on the 7th rank. Best of all, I had again had a massive time advantage and it looked like my opponent wouldn't have time to find a way to break through. On move 34, I had the option to force a Rook trade, but I worried that being overeager for trades could backfire (after all a King and a Knight against a King is a draw). So instead, I decided to use my Rook to pick off Black's isolated pawns.
With only 2 minutes left on the clock, Black tried attacking my h and g pawns. I easily moved the h-pawn to safety and then by instinct moved the g-pawn. This proved to be an awful blunder because although the pawn was protected by my Knight, pushing the pawn to f4 allowed Black to break in. Simply moving my King over to f1 would have protected everything and kept my advantage. Instead, Black was able to win my Knight with a tactic on move 41.
I still thought I might be able to win with my extra pawn, but the engine says I threw my lead away and the game is a dead draw. In an endgame, there is often the question of how fast you should push your pawn versus slowly moving support alongside it. On move 44, I overextended the my pawn because I thought I could block Rook to f1 with my Rook. But after I made the move, I realised that a Rook trade allows Black to catch my pawn and force a draw. I tried to play on but there was no winning and even losing my other pawn didn't change the fact that the game was a draw.
I was disappointed to let victory slip through my fingers but a draw against a much higher rated player is still a small win.
40 even moves and then an explosion
Game 4 was a fairly standard Caro-Kahn game, except I managed to trade my Knight for a Bishop on move 10. The moves were fairly standard, but oddly my opponent spent a huge amount of time thinking on each move. Without much effort, I once again had double my opponent's time. I tried to line my Queen and Bishop up for an attack but nothing came of it. My e5 pawn was weak so I had to trade off pieces to protect it.
It was around this time I heard a burst of wailing. At first, I ignored it and assumed that one of the small children watching must have fallen over or something (there's usually a few parents and siblings hanging around waiting for children to finish playing). But then I noticed several juniors near me get up from their boards and run to the far end of the playing hall. They crowded around a young boy, aged around 8-10, who was not merely crying but wailing at the top of his voice, presumably over a terrible blunder. The other children seemed to have run over more out of curiosity and to see the game, rather than to comfort the boy, who was lead outside by an arbiter. Chess can be brutal.
As my game continued, the position looked dead even. We both had Queen and Rooks battling over our pawns. I could blockade Black's c-pawn and they could stop my pawns from advancing, so it seemed unlikely that either one of us would break through. Did I want a draw? Honestly, I always play for a win unless the opponent is much higher rated than me and before this game I thought my opponent was around the same rating as me. Plus their time was getting low so maybe they would get desperate and overextend their c-pawn, allowing me to win it.
Instead this proved to be my undoing. I would have held a draw if I blocked the pawn, but allowing it to advance gave my opponent the advantage. I thought I could counterattack with my Queen but this proved to be a terrible blunder. Before I knew what was happening, Black got their Rook to the 1st rank, supported by their pawn, winning the game. For almost 40 moves the game had been practically dead even, and then in two moves it all collapsed.
Can I hold the line?
My opponent in this round had a provisional rating and beaten one of the lowest rated players in our section and lost to one of the highest rated, so I didn't really know what to expect. The game opened with a Sicilian Defence and I noticed my opponent was slow to respond. Even in the opening, he took a long time thinking over each move. So yet again, I soon had a massive time advantage. He spent 10-20 minutes on most of the moves 10-15, so he soon ended up with only 15 minutes on the clock while I had over 50 minutes.
It seemed strange to spend so long on seemingly ordinary moves in a semi-closed position where we were both just moving our pieces into better positions. My main plan at the time was to to bring my Knight to b6 to harass the White Bishop and follow up by pushing the pawn to c4. But that would allow the White Knight into d5, so I decided to push the pawn to stop this and wait and see how my opponent would try to attack. If he was going to let me win on time, then that was acceptable to me as well.
It turns out that I shouldn't have been so complacent as there were some tactical possibilities in the position after all. On move 18, White pressured my d6 and then two moves later took the Knight with his Bishop. Then I realised the danger. White would fork my Queen and Bishop with the Knight winning either a piece or an exchange. Worse still, White would probably win the d6 pawn, allowing them to break through and probably win the game. So I decided the best line was to lose a piece and hope that I could keep the position closed as my best hope of getting a draw.
I held the line as best I could but my opponent slowly lifted his Rooks and launched an attack. I had no choice but to trade Queens and eventually the White Rook was able to infiltrate my defences and pick off my pawns one-by-one. The extra Knight proved too strong and I eventually lost the game.
There's a hole in the wall
After two defeats, I was determined the end the tournament on a positive note by winning my last game. The game started as a standard Advanced Caro-Kahn until on move 7, my opponent moved their Knight to the side of the board, allowing me the opportunity of taking and doubling his kingside pawns. The engine doesn't mark it as a blunder and after the game my opponent said it's a line that sometimes works in online games, but I felt it gave me a winning advantage. It effectively ruled out castling Kingside, but I quickly advanced my pawns on the other side of the board to rule out castling Queenside.
By move 13, I felt I had a winning position. Not only was the Black King stuck in the middle of the board, but most of Black's pieces were stuck with little space. His Knight was on the side of the board with only one safe move and his light squared Bishop had nowhere to go except to the back rank. We made some trades but his position was still no better and I was ready to open things up. I could have played it slowly and gradually picked up some pawns as I improved my position, but instead I decided to get aggressive and go for the knockout blow.
On move 25, I won the pawn and seemed to have a very powerful attack. It looked my opponent was on the ropes and all I had to do was finish him off. As usual, I had a massive time advantage, but I didn't care about that because mate seemed not too far away. I had so many targets it was hard to pick one and I frequently changed my plans move-to-move. However, my advantage slipped through my fingers and by move 30, the game was actually a draw. I had thought that my Queen was my best piece so it was vital to keep it on the board, but it turns out I could have gone into a winning an endgame after a Queen trade.
I realised that it was essential to get my Bishop into the game as it wasn't doing much on the back rank. I planned to bring it to c6, but when Black pushed their pawn to f6, I changed my plan to getting my Queen behind enemy lines. I became so focused on this goal that I got careless with my pawns and even when I got a check on move 35, it didn't give me any advantage. By move 40, I no longer felt like I was winning and worried that I had focused too much on giving check without figuring out how that would give me an advantage. I had casually sacrificed pawns in my attack but now my attack had run out of steam and I was down two pawns.
So I decided to revive my old plan of getting my Bishop to c6. Just like that, I had a plan again and things started to click into place. My pieces worked together in harmony, my Queen defended my Rook which defended my King, while also pointing at the opponent's pieces ready to pounce once I got my Bishop into position. I felt the momentum swing back in my favour, although the engine screams that this was a blunderfest of incompetence from both of us. But that wasn't clear at the time, what was clear was that I had finally trapped my opponent. I won his Rook, taking care that every move was check and was marching towards checkmate when my opponent resigned.
Conclusion
Overall, the tournament went well for me, although I am disappointed I failed to convert my lead in game three. It is noticeable that I had a major time advantage in every single game, often a lead of 30-40 minutes. In some games my opponents were reduced to relaying on increment. However, this extra time didn't give me any advantage on the board so perhaps it's less of an advantage than you might think. Then again, when your opponent spends 20 minutes on an early developing move, there's little else to do other than sit and watch the clock.
I ended up breaking even with a performance of 1741, dropping a single ICU rating point to 1750 and a single FIDE point to 1669. Last year I had to miss several tournaments for personal reasons, so I'm glad to be getting back into the swing of things. There are a couple of tournaments coming up over the next few months, so I look forward to competing and writing about my experience.
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