Denver Open: Simul Match Against Danny Rench
Early in 2019 I decided to get back into playing OTB tournaments, and was excited to discover that the Denver Chess Club was planning to host a large tournament in April. I was even more excited to find out that IM Daniel Rench, Chess.com's Chief Chess Officer, would be playing a simultaneous match against 30 players Friday night! I quickly signed up and then began to contemplate how I was going to stand a chance against an International Master.
And so, to the game! The ground rules were that Danny would play white against 26 of us and would cycle clockwise around the room making moves at each board. We were expected to make our move when Danny arrived, and then he would respond and then move on the next game. We were given three passes for the entire game; I misunderstood this as three passes per move and passed five times before I figured out my error sometime after move 20. I don't think this had a significant effect on the game, and Danny graciously allowed me to keep playing.
Danny chose several different openings against us, opening with 1. e4 against me. My typical response is the Sicilian, and we gradually made our way into a Maroczy Bind Formation. I felt very fortunate to open into this position. While I normally find myself in the jungle of positional analysis after around 5 moves, I'm relatively familiar with the Dragon and as such recognize the Maroczy Bind as, in my opinion, the best response. Even though the position favors white slightly I was happy to be in a familiar position. I was out of simply memorized opening territory after 5. c4 but felt comfortable that I would know the themes of the game to come. My friend playing beside me instead received 1. c4, a move he has never played against over the board, and was promptly doing analysis on the first move!
The major themes of this position are my powerful kingside bishop on g7 propelling a queenside attack, which white blunts by binding black up with a strong central knight on d4. Generally the Maroczy Bind progresses by white supporting the d4 knight with a bishop on e3 and castling queenside, while black castles kingside, takes control of the half-open c-file, and drives his pawns at the white queenside. This can lead to very sharp positions, where each side races to expose the other's king first; black sacrificing a rook for the knight on c3 is a common attempt to crack open the white egg. Specifically considering the 7... Bg7 move, I believe I wanted to prepare to castle so I could proceed with an attack without worrying about my queen, and I thought that a more complex position with more material would be advantageous since I would have more time to analyze. While I haven't annotated this move with a question mark, I think I would prefer 7... Nxd4 with hindsight, since it removes white's most active piece and creates a better opportunity for a queenside attack using the g7 bishop.
Of course, this plan assumed my opponent would want to cooperate! I anticipated (and the computer recommends) the usual Maroczy Bind theme of supporting the d4 knight with 8. Be3. White instead chose to castle, potentially with the same line of thinking that led me to play 7... Bg7. I then saw something impossible - did Danny hand me a center pawn? Some simplification showed that no, I was not about to find myself up material against an IM. But I had still managed to hold my own through 12 moves and end up in a reasonable position from which to continue the game, which I was quite happy with. I was also happy that my board was one of the few that made Danny pause before making his move!
Coming out of 12. Rxd1 I again had the initiative and looked for a plan. My king was reasonably safe, and arguably my king activity would be an advantage since the queens had been traded off. I knew my best chances lay in a queenside attack, so I prepared an attack against the white pawns by pressuring c4.
My attack against the queenside, however, came together haphazardly. Instead of using the initiative to bring my whole army to bear I jumped straight into attacking c4 and lost a pawn for my trouble. While I did gain a strong position for my rook on the second rank and a passed pawn, it was at the cost of a 3-on-1 pawn fight on the queenside that would be difficult to stop.
The march of queenside pawns was the biggest threat I saw, so I focused my analysis attention on removing the threat. I eventually saw the continuation I perhaps should have seen before the previous set of trades, that I could immediately capture on b3!
Through a series of threats and trades I was able to remove two white pawns at the cost of only one of my own! I didn't feel the passed pawn was a large cost to pay, since the 3-on-1 could have naturally simplified to two passed pawns. However, the remaining pawn was a large thorn in my side and I expected to have to trade a piece for the pawn in the near future. I used my available time to search for a passable response and could only find 21... Bd4? in time (I had realized my mistake regarding the time control the move before).
21... Bd4? gave up the advantage, but the game was not yet completely lost. I was surprised at the time by 23. Bd1, and unfortunately missed that Danny had offered a forced draw! I instead attempted to stack my rooks on the back rank, failing to calculate that the king could swing over to support the pinned bishop.
I fought on with my pair of rooks and eventually brought them to bear against the pawn from behind, but within a few moves realized that the pawn was a threat that would never go away completely. While other moves may have been slightly better I decided to eliminate the pawn, and pursue a draw instead of a win, with 29... Rxb6.
The rest of the game can be accurately summarized as "Danny converted." While there may be some interesting moves in there, and the computer claims that both sides blundered at points, I feel the rest of the game followed a logical progression to a white win. I did play through checkmate in case white blundered (and, honestly, to help my fellow simul players beside me 
).
That wraps up my first simultaneous exhibition match! I was honored to play our own Chief Chess Officer, and I definitely had fun playing in a unique format. This game was also a very helpful warmup for the U1800 section of the Denver Open, which I played in over the next two days. I especially want to thank Danny Rench for the game; he took a half-point bye in the Open Section to play us, and that missed game ended up being the only game he didn't win in the tournament.
