Tourn Recap: 10th Malyuta Memorial - Oct 12th

44 players competed across four sections, with the Open section being won by none other than St. Andrew’s own Roland Bodnar.

Roland is an 18-year-old student in his second year at the school, hailing all the way from Debrecen, Hungary. Talking with Roland, it was clear that his childhood years were dedicated to learning and playing chess, even having a coach to prepare him. Hungary is known for having one of the strongest chess populations in Europe, famous for the development of the Budapest Gambit by Géza Maróczy and for the First Saturday chess tournaments held in the capital city.

Now focused on his studies, Roland couldn’t resist playing a strong tournament hosted at his own school. He really showed his class with a win in the third round over the top seed, and a draw with yours truly – in which he was never worse – in the final round to secure the trophy.

Round 1: Fight!

In the first round, I was paired against Todd Jaarsma. Todd is a great guy – quirky, highly intelligent, and always a good sport. I met Todd at my very first Rhode Island tournament! I remember him knocking out a dozen moves of Queen’s Indian theory while I was still stewing over a loss to this crazy, attacking personality named Wayne Powers.

This time, I decided to avoid main line theory against Todd and see where we landed. So, 1. Nf3 it was!

After a quick transposition to the QGD, Todd shocked me by recapturing on d5 with his knight, a non-standard approach. In this variation, white is able to build a big center in the style of the Grunfeld defense, without the trouble of the fianchettoed bishop eyeing the a1-h8 diagonal. After a few more moves, we reached a critical position:

White has successfully expanded in the center, dislodging black’s queen’s knight and closing the h1-a8 diagonal to the light-squared bishop. With his last move, …Na5-b7, black hoped to maintain the pesky bishop while posting his knight on d6, eyeing the key light squares in the center. Of course, I couldn’t allow this transition, and here black must backtrack with …Na5. Instead, Todd panicked and took on c4, allowing white a large advantage in force that I used to full effect on the kingside.

After this powerful pseudo-sacrifice, white has a bind on all the key squares leading to the king. It was just a matter of time before I broke through and checkmated the black king on an open board.

Round 2:

Round two brought me a matchup I had lowkey been hoping for. The last time I played Matt Beauvais, he pressured me so hard that I dropped a piece after fighting for two hours to hold a draw as black. I wanted my revenge, but he had no intentions of rolling over.

Matt went for the very solid and positional Catalan Opening against my Indian defense. I have been studying Joel Benjamin’s games in order to build lesson plans and, as a result, I felt very confident entering a Nimzo-Indian or Bogo-Indian. Luckily, the Bogo works wonders against the Catalan, and we reach a position similar to the Nimzowitsch variation. Here, black should expand immediately with …e5, but I had an interesting/crazy idea and decided to play …c5!? which is a little dubious but poses an interesting question to white of how to handle these odd structural changes.

Matt is no slouch, and correctly identified that my pawn structure had a gaping hole at d5. He has maneuvered his king’s knight and dark-squared bishop in order to fill that hole, but black has ideas of closing the center and suffocating the powerful Catalan bishop. My students will tell you, if you can trade or cripple that bishop, white’s winning chances diminish considerably.

After many moves of jockeying for position, black is forced to sacrifice a pawn and liquidate large amounts of material. I misplayed a few key points leading up to this position, but the real question is: does black have compensation after 31. Bxd3 exd3 32. Rxd3 Rxd3 33. Rxd3 Rxd3 34. Qxd3 Ne4? I correctly evaluated that the light square play was more than enough compensation long ago which is why I overlooked a couple interesting resources en route to this position.

In the end, we both fell into time trouble, but I was able to reach a dominating knight vs. bishop endgame. The final position required a simple tactic.

1…Qf3+! 2. Qxf3 Nxd2+ 3.Kf2 Nxf3 and black resigned.

A tough game for us both. An instructive loss for the younger.

Round 3:

I relish every opportunity to play Phu Si Vo. He’s an incredibly creative, resourceful, and stubborn player in addition to being an absolute sweetheart of a guy. The last time we played – not so long ago, at the Tomorrow Fund Charity Tournament – it was a real nail biter where I was worse for most of the game after misplaying my opening advantage. I was able to employ a ballsy king walk right into his castle, and with us both playing on delay, he dropped mate in one.

This game, Phu never got off the starting blocks. I prepared the night before by studying our encounters and noticed that he has a weakness of allowing queenside expansion, so I repeated the same opening in hopes that he hadn’t learned.

Lo and behold, he allowed the exact same expansion as before, under different circumstances. This time, he thought his compensation was penetration on the light squares around my king, but I had anticipated a cool resource after 12. Ng5! The idea is to bring the knight to the e4 square where it will eye the annoying d6 weakness.

After this blunder, white has a winning position by force. 15. Nxf6+ Bxf6 16. Bxb7 and there is simply too much control over the light squares for black to expect any sort of counterplay.

Here, white has 43.Qg5! essentially forcing the trade of queens and black’s position quickly falls apart. My opponent was not as frustrated as after our last encounter, but I could tell he was disappointed that he never had the wind in his sails.

Round 4:

Against a player you’ve never faced before, you have a decision to make: Go for the throat or test the waters? Not so long ago, I would have pulled out my blade and struck at Roland Bodnar, despite the fact that he cleanly put away an expert in round three. Maybe I’ve mellowed with age. Maybe I’ve wised up.

As Roland correctly pointed out after the game, a Caro-Kann defense is essentially a draw offer. I was more than happy to draw the young man and watch him carry off my trophy after a long, exhausting day. Still, I have some ambition in me. This 6…e6?! variation was tried by Carlsen in game 2 of the Wch against Anand in Chennai. If white is sharp, he will notice that 7. h4 h6 8. Ne5! is a unique opportunity that leads to original play; but, unlike Anand, my opponent could not pull the trigger.

Here, I made a direct draw offer. I believe it’s justified, as white has not put the usual pressure on black’s king, and retreating with the queen is an admission of wrongdoing. Roland thought for ten minutes, give or take, and eventually decided to play on. I’m not sure about the time gambit, but I admire the spirit to continue!

Black has played creatively with inferior minor pieces, but all for nought. The simple 31. Bxg7 here would have called my bluff of trapping the bishop and surely Roland would have won the game. Instead, he played the very creative 31. Ne5?!, overlooking a key defensive resource to the attack on f7.

Here, 34. Nxf7+?? fails to …Ke7 35. Nh8 g5! and the knight is trapped. We both overlooked the beautiful technical line 34. Rd2+! Ke8 35. Nd7! Rh5 36. Nxf6+ gxf6 37. Rd6 +-

Roland retreated with 34. Nd3? and soon thereafter we agreed to a draw in a knight vs. bishop endgame where neither side could make progress. Just like that, he was the most important saint at school.