Yesterday Vasik and I played a blitz marathon at home. Time control was 3+2. He beat me in a longer match for the first time, the overall score was 17-11. The result wasn't entirely a surprise, last time it was just 10-8 in my favor and that was a few months ago and I trailed for most of the match. Below is a mini-report, for posterity.

We both played Accelerated Dragons with both colors. I prepared several side-lines for the match as at this point Vasik knows the main lines better than I do. My strategy was to try to play endgames and quiet positions, as we've discussed here several times. I'm not actually sure that was a great idea, several times I got outplayed in endgames.

My only defense as black against the Maroczy was 7. .. Ng4, then after 8. Qxg4 Nxd4 9. Qd1 I prepared and played both 9. .. e5 and 9. .. Ne6. I first played 9. .. e5 a few times, had a small minus there overall, with one cool win:

Move 15, black to play and win:

If this puzzle was a little harder I'd call it a "DP kind of position".

Then I switched to 9. .. Ne6, which went a little better. Several times we had the following position, where the score was around even, move 12, white to move:

Eventually Vasik switched to 5. Nc3 and then I had big problems. We had the following position several times, move 19, black to move:

One of our rules was no computer analysis between games. I kept playing 19. .. Re8 here, which is a mistake, the only move for equality is 19. .. f5. I was playing 19. .. Re8 because one of white's threats is 20. h6 Bh8 21. h7+, and 19. .. Re8 defends against that by preparing 20. h6 Bf8 21. h7+ Kh8. What I didn't see is that the much more natural 19. .. f5 also provides squares for the bishop, for example 19. .. f5 20. h6 Be5. If we keep the no-engines-between-rounds rule, I'll need to prepare multiple defenses against 5. Nc3 next time to avoid getting stuck like this.

When I was white we played this endgame several times, move 15, black to move:

7. .. Nxd4 is Vasik's main defense against the Maroczy nowadays, we call it the Markowski although it has no official name. I picked this endgame, white is supposed to be a little better and I liked that it's an endgame. However, I scored I think a small minus from this position. Not sure if that was bad luck or if the go-for-endgames heuristic wasn't as clever as I thought.

Here is one interesting K+P endgame we got out of this, move 35, white to play:

I played 35. Kd2. Who has the better chances in that queening race?

We also got the main line a few times, I prepared the following, move 15, black to move:

My idea was Nb5 and after the eventual Bxb5 cxb5, white will play Bc4, Qe3, and f3-f4-f5 with pressure against f7.

We had the following position several times, move 22, black to move:

This is another position where the no-computers-between-rounds rule had an effect. We're both on our own since 16. .. Rfc8. Here the computer wants to play 22. .. Na4 with a score of +0.3. Vasik always played 22. .. Nd7 here, then white can get +2.0 with 23. e5 Rxc4 24. exd6. Neither of us realized that so I kept playing 23. Qe2, then after 23. .. Nb6 black is already a tiny bit better. I still slightly preferred white's position after 23. Qe2 and didn't see anything better, so I kept repeating it.

MIT Lunatics

Super Admins