The weekend before last I participated in the Bangor Congress 2019, a 6 round rapid tournament which has been revived after a 14 year break, thanks to the energetic organiser, Brendan Jameson and his team.
Tournament Organiser/Arbiter Brendan Jamison with Bill Keery, Mayor of Ard and North Down
We had a really good field of 50 players. As I was the top seed, my aim was to win the tournament, but I only came second - which is still quite good, of course.
I started well, winning my first three games with reasonable play.
Here is an interesting moment from my second round game against Modestas Razbadauskas. Black has a nice position with his strong bishops, but it still looks like a complicated struggle. How would you continue here?
And this position is from my third game against Sergio Esteve Sanchez. White is a pawn up and has a dangerous passer on the a-file, so his strategy should be to simplify to a winning endgame. How would you do it?
After the lunch break things got a bit trickier. In the fourth round I faced John Cairns whom I never played before. I thought it was a good opportunity to experiment a little bit and try my new weapon, the Classical Sicilian, although I had not really finished studying the main lines - but as nearly everybody in Northern Ireland plays sidelines against the Sicilian, I expected to get something like a Grand Prix attack or a Closed Sicilian.
Well, it turned out that John is a main line player, and he plays the Sozin attack, which was a very unpleasant surprise, as the last time I studied the Sozin was in the '90s, when I played it with White as a junior. I tried to figure things out at the board, but got into a bad position quickly:
After this lucky escape, I faced another tough opponent, Michael Waters. I felt I had a serious advantage in the opening, but then somehow it petered out and we reached an equal endgame. Another draw.
Then came the last round, when I faced the young talent Daniil Zelenchuk. After a dull middlegame, we had the following endgame:
It is rather annoying to miss such an easy win, especially when it costs you the first place.
But anyhow, it was a very enjoyable tournament, and it showed clearly what areas I need to improve on, so next year I will hopefully do better. The Belfast Congress is a nice addition to our usual yearly tournaments in Northern Ireland, so a big thanks for the organisers to bring it back to life.
Prize-winners left to right: Christopher Dorrian (Junior Champion), Alex Goss (Under 1800 Grading Prize), Evan Elwood (Junior 3rd), Daniel Hill (Under 850 Grading prize), Tyrone Winter (Under 1200 Grading Prize), John Monaghan (Junior 2nd), Gabor Horvath (2nd), Champion John Cairns and Billy (representing Mellons Hyundai).
I hope you enjoyed the post. If you are looking for quality coaching to improve your game, I am currently accepting new students. Feel free to send me a private message here or on hogata11@gmail.com.
