An evening of OTB (featuring an attacking win!)
I managed to go to the university chess club tonight, enjoyed playing a few OTB games for a change. Definitely much more enjoyable, and I think I play better in those games than in Online on here (I tend to lose my train of thought in those games!)
I started off with a couple of games against a guy who was clearly not an experienced player! He always moved his a and h pawns first in the opening, and never contested the centre at all. I won both fairly quickly - credit to the guy for not getting upset about it though, with that attitude he will improve fast! Then I moved on, to play a Chinese fellow who was a fairly decent player. I managed to beat him 4-0, but not without some tough fights. The games we played took maybe half an hour total each, we were playing quickly, but without clocks.The first game I have reconstructed from memory (I don't think it's entirely perfect) - a nice attacking game in my best style:
The second game was a Dutch Defence, quickly turning into a Nimzo-Indian style position - I established a central blockade, forced his king to flee to the centre and won with the superior mobility of my light square bishop vs. his bad one.
Third game was another Reti French - he tried accepting the gambit this time. It reached an endgame where I sacrificed a pawn to advance my king and create weaknesses in his camp. I posted a bishop on e1 to defend pawns on c3 and f2! Later the c pawn moved, my bishop came to the long diagonal and I won.
The last game, he tried to surprise me and played the Grob! He opened the g-file to attack my king, but the downside was that his king had to stay in the centre, and my threats to blast it open traded down into a rook endgame where I was up a pawn and my rook was much more active. I managed to force a trade of rooks, after which, the win was trivial.
So a perfect night for me! Credit to my opponent, he was very unlucky to lose all 4 games. But I was merciless which was pleasing for me at least! Thanks for reading!
