Kenmore Open Best Game Winner

This is the best game winner from the Kenmore Open, a one game a week, club tournament run by the newly started Amateur Chess Association of Western New York.

The game was won by Gary Boye (1637) and contained many instructive moments. In many ways it is a model game in the Nimzo. Gary achieves long term advantages with the two bishops and a strong, stable center. He then managed to achieve good play on both sides of the board. In particular, the thrusts a4 and g4 are very nice and instructive. Gary also had the pleasure of finishing with a nice mate.

There were some missed opportunities for both sides. In particular, Tony could have struck back on moves 22 and 23, but in general, Gary was in command and fine form throughout the game.

This game is also interesting because of many similarities to the final match game between Anand and Carlsen (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1737896). In annotating the game, I often wondered if Gary was directly inspired by the game.

Despite losing this game, this was a very good showing for Tony. This was his first USCF tournament, and he finished with a very respectable 2 of 5. He might have scored even better but for a very unfortunate blunder in a rook endgame in round 4. After this tournament, he acquired a respectable provisional rating of 1017.