After a terrific start to the tournament I was on 2.5/3 points. Things were therefore bound to get harder!
The draw for each round is published the evening prior, so I was able to find out my next opponent would be Koichi Nicholas 2156 ECF, 2097 FIDE who was not a player I had come across before.
A quick google search resulted in the discovery that he had won the gold medal at the 2022 mind sports Olympiad in a game called “Lines of action!”
Koichi was also on 2.5/3 but this was after having taken one half point bye so in reality had had won both of his games.
The game began as a Maroczy Bind Sicilian, which was a bit of a surprise as previously he had mainly headed down lines with the pawn left on c2. I decided to deviate from my usual set up into a system I had played many years ago. A key moment in this game came in the following position:
White has just played the move 13. 0-0!? Which may seem an absolutely normal move to make, until you realize that Black can win a pawn here with 13…,Bxc3 followed by 14.Rxc3, Bxe4
I was also fully aware that this is exactly what Black is supposed to do in this position to “punish” White for his last move.
The downsides of this strategy are obvious as in winning the pawn Black weakens his kingside dark squares and the King is rather lacking a safe place to go. Castling Kingside seems unappealing and castling Queenside will naturally by met with a pawn storm from White. Therefore it was with some reluctance that knowing it was what i’m supposed to do I played down this line.
Lets fast forward a few moves to the following position:
Before playing the capture I’d tried to work out what I was going to go about doing next, the basic plan I came up with was to retreat the bishop to c6 and manoeuvre the somewhat awkwardly placed Queen which was on a5 back to c7 via e5. I’d put the Bishop on c6 rather then b7 so that it gave support to the d7 pawn which could otherwise be a target I thought on an open file and secondly to give the option of Qb7 which from a distance I thought might provide a strong battery on the long diagonal.
Over the past few moves pretty much exactly what i’d just described had happened and with his last move White has side stepped the direct pressure on g2. So what exactly to do next as Black?
In hindsight and after having looked at the position with an engine after the game, Black should probably play calmly and not be too concerned leaving the King in the centre of the board. But I decided to play f5 and castle, Queenside. I think I was just about right in determining that I can play this way. But obviously I am castling into a big attack and walking a bit of a tightrope. Nicholas played flawlessly and in the following position I made a fatal mistake
I’d played Ba8 with the idea of Qb7, I’d been aware for some time of White’s c5 plan (if the c file opens the queen will be skewered to the king) but what at this stage hadn’t entered my thinking was the weak h3-c8 diagonal. Therefore after 25.c5, b5 26.c6! forcing the d7 pawn to advance as the c file mustn’t open.
26…d5
When playing Ba8 I hadn’t seen the fatal flaw of this move for Black
Of course now 27.Bg4! hits the board, the idea I had missed. Black position is busted, losing material, a dead bishop on a8 and still under attack… I resigned a few moves later. A lovely attacking game by Koichi, I think White’s opening gambit 13.0-0 seems underrated by most of the opening books written on this line!
Nicholas V McCarthy round 4
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So after that first loss I was still in a reasonable spot on 2.5 / 4 with 5 games left. There was no time to regroup as the draw for the following day was published.
My next game was to be White against Freddie Pick – 1955 ECF, and without any FIDE rating.
I had very little information to go on in this one. The fact that Pick has no Fide rating yet meant that he has not played Fide chess before and therefore no published games at that point other then the games he had so far played in this tournament.
I had a look through his two games so far as Black, he’d gone for the Caro Kann in round one, and in round three he deviated and played Sicilian. The Sicilian game gave me nothing as his opponent went for the Alapin, not something I play. I spent a bit of time getting ready for the Caro. Naturally after 1.e4 1.c5 was played!
I was very wary about what I was getting into from the opening, he went straight in for the Sicilian Sveshnikov. I sometimes have been known to play a sharp gambit line against this which I’ve done very well with in the past. There are a few games on the database in it now though and my opponent had no doubt I thought been studying it all morning…
No over the board in this situation what I needed was something very boring and positional I felt, therefore in the following position I played 11.c4
Not a move I’d been planning to play pre tournament, but something I have looked at a bit. Going back a couple of decades this move was seen as a bit toothless. But then it was played as the mainline in the Anand V Gelfand 2010 world championship match and people began to take it more seriously.
My friend who had travelled with me to this event, (who is an avid Sveshnikov player as Black) referred to this line afterwards as the “London System of the Sveshnikov.”
If we fast forward a few moves from here after move 22 we had reached this position.
I doubt White has any real advantage, Obviously the backward pawn on d6 stands out but it is quite hard to attack. My Knight on c2 is having to stand guard over the d4 square incase of occupation by the Knight. I was very aware not to allow any trade of Black’s Dark Squared Bishop for my Knight as the Bishop on h3 would be no match for an unopposed Knight on d4. I was fairly content here though as I thought I could slowly try and improve and play a two result sort of game.
Here however my opponent embarked on a very bad plan with 22…,Ng6?! then after 23.Rf-d1, Nf8? suddenly Black is in a bit of trouble. If the Knight could bypass my Light Squared Bishop then this manoeuvre would make sense but obviously as soon as it jumps to d7 or e6 I am going to snap it off… Then the pressure on d6 may begin to tell. Also now my Knight on c2 is no longer required to guard the d4 square so I am free to play Ne3 at some point without fearing BxN.
Let’s fast forward to move 31 when Black plays 31…Ne6
Pretty much everything described in the previous paragraph has come to pass and Black is left with the only weakness. In actual fact there was no way for Black to hold the pawn after this as after 32.Bxe6, Rxe6 Black loses the pawn to 33.c5!
Therefore he went for 32…fxe6, but this was met by 33.Rxe5 exploiting the pin on the c file.
Despite being a pawn down black did his best to complicate and on the time control move 40 I was faced with this position:
Here I could see I can force what looks like a winning endgame after 40.Qd5+,Kg7 and 41.fxe5 leading to exchanges. The only question was then after 41…,Rxf2 42.Rxf2 Rxf2, 43.Kxf2 Qh3 44.exd6 is my opponent going to be able to threaten a draw by perpetual check? I’d have liked a bit more time to work it out. In the end I thought i’d figured it all out as my King will be able to run up the board escaping the checks via f4 and e5. Pleased with myself for having (I thought!) figured it all out I played the move… 40.Qd5+ reaching time control…
We then quickly played the sequence i’d been looking at and arrived at this position.
This is where I’d been planning on move 40 to play e5xd6 but it suddenly dawned on me that if I go blindly into that plan, after something like:
44.e5xd6, Qh2 45.Kf3 Qf1+ 46.Kg4 Qe2+ 47.Kf4 Qf2+ 48.Ke5?? there is a rather unfortunate checkmate with 48…Qf6#
After a brief moment of horror having missed this on move 40 I realized I could instead now throw in 44.Qb7+ first then the game continued 44…Kh6 45.exd6 and now the aforementioned plan works perfectly as there is no queen on d5 to give helpmate when my king eventually runs to e5!
The game continued a bit longer but two pawns down and one of them a passed pawn on d6 there was no defending this position for Black.
Therefore that night I was pleased to be back on +2 (3.5/5)
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When the sixth round draw was published I was up against Michael Ashworth 2091 ECF, 2013 FIDE
Apparently I had played Michael’s brother Robert Ashworth at a past event, but I had no memory of this at the time and only found out when Michael mentioned it after the game.
This time looking over Michael’s online profile with my friend we had a pretty clear idea about what Michael would do in the opening. I had not come across this opponent personally but I had been warned he was another very strong player, having apparently won the Cotswolds Open with a score of 5/6.
It became clear that Michael would likely play a Qc2 Nimzo Indian as White and I had to decide what to do against it. At last year’s event I had taken the attitude that I should just play my normal Opening lines despite the possibility of prep. This hadn’t gone all that well last year in truth. I was particularly cautious of playing my normal opening here for a couple of reasons. One I have a large number of published games in my normal system v Qc2, so he would no doubt know exactly what to expect. In truth whilst I enjoy playing my usual line I do feel with best play White can achieve a comfortable small edge.
Therefore we spent the entire morning learning a new system… and low and behold after 11 moves one of the positions we had looked at was on the board!
In fact it wasn’t until move 16 that I had anything unexpected, which was a tremendous help during the opening phase and I think I managed to equalize fairly comfortably. Indeed I quite fancy against a lesser strength player I may have managed to cause white alot more problems given my early lead in development.
Again let’s fast forward a few moves where perhaps I could have played a little less conservatively and here below after move 26.Rd1 Michael has managed to unravel and is no doubt hoping to make some progress with his Bishop pair…
I do think here Black’s completely fine with the symmetrical pawn structure despite being up against the two Bishops. But in this position i’d been wanting to respond Rc2 but for some reason when it came to it saw a problem with this line (I should have played it, it’s the best move!)
However here I played one of the sloppiest moves of my tournament and it should could have cost me in 26…Rd8??
I was aware of the d file pin of course but I didn’t think White could do anything about it, planning to just bring my king into the middle to support. As soon as I played the move however I started looking at the move 27.Bc5! which was quite an uncomfortable move to face.
Kicking myself it appeared that all was not lost (very fortunately) as despite the advance passed pawn White ends up with after 27…,bxc5 28.bxc5 Bc8 29.cxd6
We ended up with a position where the d pawn has been stopped and Bxh3 is on the cards.
Now the game quickly simplified to a point after 29…,Bxh3 30.gxh3, 31.Nf4
A few more moves were played, I brought the king across to help round up the d6 pawn and we finally after quite a few exchanges we reached this endgame;
Here I very much considered dragging the game on with g4, but objectively even a pawn up I can see its a complete draw so therefore the game continued 41…,Re3+ 42.Kf2, Rxe4 43.hxg5 hxg5 44.Rxg5 Kf6 45.Rh5 Kh4 when we both agreed on the inevitable draw. 4/6 for the tournament with three games to play.
Here endeth part 2, apologies that was quite a bit longer then I had intended to write if you’ve got through all that you’ve got great stamina 🙂
I’ll try and publish the final 3 rounds next week!
*EDIT
After writing this I did fully intend to publish part 3. But time passes and things get in the way. For those really interested you can find my final 3 games online, which were 3 draws! I was still fairly happy with this however as again each of my opponents had a higher rating. Therefore I finished the event on a positive 5.5/9 3 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss. Something to build upon hopefully!