Half-time show

Ladies, it's only a 4 round event, so time to lick my wounds and get ready for tomorrow.  Have you ever played chess in a bar......it turns out it's one way to meet otherrr c h e s s players!?  My evening soirée includes a walk in the park and some pictures at the giant table and chair across from the SSM Library.  Jeff will go back the next day to (try to) get his photo of a game against a Canada goose.

We also stop by Lil's Asian Cuisine at March and Queen St.  I highly recommend this joint, and Greg the owner is super friendly.

Chowing down my chow-mein my thoughts of today's games are furthest from my mind.  You'll excuse me while I am catching up in conversation with my friend about life lessons, but feel free to continue reading to get your chess lesson.

In case you missed it...

I've just snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat.

I looked the gift shark in the mouth and the beast swallowed me.  CHOMP CHOMP.  Two pawns gone and I was unable to hold the ending against the marauding knight.

This is the "Move 33 reset."  My position has gone from losing to drawing in the space of a couple moves.  I've created this handy-dandy table of what to do in case such an evaluation change happens in your games.  As you can see, it is now a drawn game, so settle down and take the draw.  I was giving chest compressions to a dead position and made a zombie out of it.   

So, what really happened after the dust had settled on move 33 was that I looked up and saw an opponent with bloodshot eyes who looked like he had just had his lunch money stolen.

(After the game I realized he had driven up from Detroit, a longer commute than mine, and attended a wedding.  Remember that at these weekend swisses some competitors are coming in with a bigger hole in their head than others.)

I convinced myself to throw it in drive, and go right over the cliff¡  I should have been elated with a draw after nearly being pushed off the board, even if I was a bit higher rated than Loren.  Given my description of my opponent, I can only imagine what I looked like mulling my fatal move!  Probably something like the Duracell bunny who had finally taken off his shades to reveal a pair of extremely baggy eyes.

I’m still yammering on about last round, but here’s the moral of that story:

• Play main lines!
• If you start playing an offbeat opening and realize you don’t know what you’re doing, you may as well take as much time as possible to get back on track. Otherwise, as in this game, you’re probably just going to end up lost and what you need to get back in the game is something other than more time on the clock.

Done!  That’s it, that’s all.  And one more thing:

• If you look Death in the face, and he lets you go, don’t grab him by the shoulders and turn it into a staring competition – TAKE THE DRAW!!
• If the board is starting to spin just go for the draw!