Mounting Mastery #23: A Refutation, Swindle, and "Peaceful" Final

56 day and counting... whew!

Glad to be back!

Where did we leave off? We will have to go ALL the way back to Mounting Mastery #22 (Published June 8th, 2018!), where I documented my short-term future plans. Let's rewind back to where we left off:

"As for my next post, I have this tournament on Saturday, June 16th. I, unfortunately, can only play three of the four rounds (due to other plans later on), though I will play with grit and determination over my three rated games. Then the following Sunday, I leave for a week-long church camp and will have no access to chess.com. So it will be interesting... playing a tournament, leaving for a week without chess, then analyzing the tournament games without having seen them for a week! With that said, my post may not be out until sometime during the weekend between June 29th and July 1st.”

Well, my post (next edition of Mounting Mastery) never came out lol! How did my tournament go? Before the tournament, I was at my peak (1828) and dropped a few points after three games. My final record was 1.5/3, one win, one draw, and one loss.

Church camp was great by the way! Lots of learning, volleyball, scavenger hunt, square dancing, you name it!

The subsequent tournament, I fell to a 1454, and thus, my rating dipped from a near all-time high of 1814 down to the summit of 1774! Since that tournament, it took two more events to "recover" my rating back up to 1803! I still have awhile to go before full recovery is complete, though I am so far satisfied with my rating elevation over the past two months.

I would like to use this post to document my most recent tournament, where out of three games, I scored 2.5/3, probably my best performance in a local event.

My first round was against Dr. Dane Fowlkes (981). This was only Dr. Fowlkes' fifteenth rated game in his life (edit: he got 15 games after this tournament... this was his 13th). He does look to improve his rating, and I believe that he will get it up. I'd estimate him at about 1200-1400 strength.

Let's jump to the "refutation" I was referring to in the title:

My opponent in the above position elected to play 9. e4(?). White would probably be in good hands to Castle first, and play normally. The primary reason that 9. e4 is a mistake is because that pawn abandons the defense of another critical square: d4. I seized my moment with 9... cxd4(!), and after 10. e5, dxc3 (a nice in-between move), 11. bxc3, Ne8, Black remained up a solid pawn, and went on to win the game.

I was glad to be able to take that full point home. My second game (third round, I took a bye in round 1 BTW), was against elderly gentleman Raymon McElhaney (1675), and boy what a game that was!

Let's skip ahead to the first dramatic moment of the game:

In the position above, White is doing fine if he plays 19. Nb6. What can go wrong? A solid Knight on the 6th rank, and most importantly, Black threatens Nxd5 (with the e4-pawn pinned), and Nb6 defends that point. The problem is that I failed to recognize my opponent's threat, played 19. Qc2(?), and Mr. McElhaney immediately put 19... Nxd5 on the board! I was forced to play 20. Qxc4, Qxc4 21. Rxc4, and after 21... Nf6, we got the position below:

With 21... Nf6, Black threatens to play d5, exploiting the e-file pin (once again!). This time, I did indeed see the threat, though I panicked with 22. Kf1(?). I didn't know what to do! It turns out a simple move like 22. Nc3 would have held everything together. Instead, I had to suffer after 22... d5 23. Rc5, Nxe4 24. Bxe4, Rxe4 25. Rxe4, Rxe4, though after 26. Rc8+, Bf8 27. Nc5, I have solid compensation for the pawn.

After a few moves of struggling, I did indeed win my pawn back, traded Rooks, and (in time trouble keep in mind), got myself into a classy “touch move” situation!

In the position above (I have less than three minutes on my clock, BTW), I touched my King intending to move it to d3, though before I actually made the move, I realized that my h2-pawn was hanging! I had two options: play 37. Kd3, and pray that I win the race on the Queenside, or retreat with 37. Kf2, warding off the idea of 37... Bxh2, with the classic Bishop trap 38. g3(!). With no time to spare, I elected the former with 37. Kd3, and after 37... Bxh2 38. Kc4, f5 39. Kc5, Bg1+ 40. Kd6, Kf6 41. Nb4, h5, I finally won my pawn back with 42. Nxh6, when we reached the final critical moment of the game (whew!).

My opponent sought to roll on the Kingside with 42... g5(??). It turns out that 42... Ba7 holds the position, and I would have had a difficult time playing on with minutes left on my clock. But after 42... g5 43. Nc5(!!) was the move that got me into the driver's seat. My opponent tried 43... Bd4 though after 44. a6, Be5+, 45. Kd5, Bb8...

WHALLAH! What a grandiose finish! Well, actually not the finish, as my opponent played on until checkmate, which was understandable given my lack of time. Keep in mind that since move 37, I had less than three minutes on my clock (breathing on the 5-second delay)!

After this breathtaking affair, I was sitting on 2.5/3, in clear second place behind my local arch-nemesis Jason Howell (2006), who would be the man sitting across from me in the final round. I was in a pickle. For one, Jason is simply very difficult for me to beat in tournament play (going into the game, 2 draws and 7 losses is not an attractive score against an individual opponent). Jason was at 3/3 and would be happy with a draw to seal the tournament prize.

Would I be content with a draw?

I decided to concede a draw, and settle for 2nd place. We didn’t prearrange the draw, though I knew that my opponent would likely be willing to shake hands after a few simplifying moves.

I’m sorry it’s been awhile… and let me know what you think of the overall format with the GIFs, diagrams, arrows, etc. Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments! Oh, and to close off, here are the final standings of that tournament:

Back over 1800... let's go!