The Story of GM
This is the story of Govind Mohan Lal, affectionately known as 'GM'in the Chess Circuit!
He had a bad day in the office and he was livid with himself. He had drawn his crucial 6th round game against his old foe that had pushed him into the joint 2nd spot with a score of 5 points. Had he won that game, he would have propelled himself into the top of the table. And, with 3-rounds remaining, would have been favourite to win this championship.
How could he draw such a game, which was nothing but a total home preparation from the white-side of the Scotch Opening? After 15 moves he had his opponent on his toe and, the writing was all over the wall. With the country in the grip of IPL fever and the newspaper just forgetting about the existence of other sports, he could still imagine himself making the headlines next day, probably on the same page as with the RR team!
Alas! One moment of indiscretion and, his dreams were falling apart. Moreover, he was furious that he was forced to share the 2nd spot jointly with his opponent in the last round, his long time Chess friend but enemy within!
He could not fathom the thought of his opponent playing Chess!! - a mere mortal that was created by God just to punish him for some of his misdeeds in his last birth!! So, whenever the opportunity presented him with a chance to play against his opponent, either in tournament or off-hand games, he played with full vigour of a gladiator!!
To a certain extent he had been successful with a score of +2 but the last 3 games prior to the current clash were a near disaster. He had no answer to his strong Berlin Defense and, he sometimes felt that he was playing against Kramnik! With Black, he had tried KID and was almost successful but somehow, he felt that his opponent had learned enough of Black magic to prevent him from winning! He was not superstitious but, playing against this opponent made him search for some Black magic ‘Limbu’, which he (his opponent) might have stashed in some remote corner of the tournament hall!!
As such, when he learnt the critical 6th round pairing, he decided to change his repertoire from Ruy Lopez to a surprise Scotch, which he had never played before and, which his opponent would have never expected him to play!
With the help of his monsters, Fritz and Chessbase, he went through the recent advances in this variation but some inner intuition signaled him that he should adopt some obscure line - a line which was beyond the chess understanding of his opponent and, as such, he decided for Scotch Four Knight’s variation.
He reached the tournament hall quite early and found the peaceful serenity of the place to calm down his jumping nerves. He decided to set his own clock as he wanted to prevent his opponent from performing any tricks on him!
His opponent, with an aura of confidence, arrived just before the scheduled time and they both shook hands. The games started and, to show a positive body language he nearly fixed the pawn on the e4 square and pressed his clock with a slightly more pressure! He was now praying that his opponent would play e5 and, after a few seconds pause, which appeared an eternity, his opponent obliged! And, after the usual 2.Nf3 Nc6 he played 3.d4! and watched with satisfaction the surprise on his opponent’s face, who was expecting 3.Bb5
The game continued as per his exact home preparation: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Bd3 d5 8.e5?! Ng4 9.Bf4 d4 10.Qf3!
Read the full story with very interesting analyzed chess games on www.LatestChess.com site.
Here is the direct link - The Story of GM
