Good effort, it's always tough in the Open section.
Action chess tourney yesterday
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Thanks and you're very right, Doggy Style :-)
With pleasure, Dragonflyhunter - but not right now as I need to leave
It may interest you to know that as the games were rapid, I didn't write down the moves during the game - but took care to reconstruct them thereafter, and therefore I now have complete scores of the first 4 games, a nearly-complete one of the fifth, and actually didn't write down (but I believe that I still remember) the sixth, where I drew a 2147 Israeli national master (it takes 2290 to make that title in Israel, but if you grow old and drop on the ratings, you don't lose the title), whom I also drew in one of my last tournaments in Israel in 2003, when he was rated 2180 (then I sacrificed a bishop in a complex ending to reach a situation when I had a lone king against his bishop and wrong rook pawn).
Games will be posted at some point, can't say exactly when... :-)
Nigel Short plays the electric guitar and rock on.
Yes, if you're wondering about the highest rated player in Israel it would certainly be recent world champ contender Boris Gelfand.
Why not? I'll post whatever I remember from the games in the coming few games (I recorded them from memory, whenever that was possible, right after they were played).
The CM title does look attractive - I believe I should still improve somewhat to merit it, though.
The time control was rapid, 20 minutes + 5 seconds per move, starting at move 1.
This was the first game I played.
Game two, at the conclusion of which I was very happy! One out of two, or fifty percent, against close to 2200-level opposition.
My euphoria was not to last long, as I lost my next two games, bringing my performance down to the 1940 area, which I considered pretty horrible.
Two draws against masters in the final rounds sweetened the pill and allowed me to conclude that the tournament was good, altogether.
A competition must be pretty strong, where it pits you against a 2282-rated master on the fifth round, when your score is 1 out of 4 (his tourney wasn't bad really - he had 2 out of 4 at that stage, which is what you would expect, as his rating put him around the middle of this very strong field).
This was unexpected, and the draw, very sweet, as you'll see further down as this thread evolves.
The third game, with an arbitration issue which actually changed the probable result of the game.
The tragedy of the game lay on my indecision, whether I should win or draw. As happens all too often, I failed to recognize in time the moment when my advantage was lost, pressed on... and blew the game altogether - and beautifully so!
Nice games so far! Interesting way of playing against 5...a6, really trying to exploit the move! I shall remember that. Bad luck in the third game, really seems like you might have won that one!
Totally! Except that the guy had that nagging thing, the threat to enter my base and perpetualize the hell out of me.
Now that I look at it in retrospect, it may well be that this guy, the experienced and seasoned player that he is, actually made a calculated sacrifice of the two Q-side pawns, knowing that I can't play for a win seriously with such an exposed king...
however he was walking a fine line indeed, as he was down to 16 seconds at some point, and the aftertaste was bitter... I probably should just have taken the draw at some point - but then again, that's experience!
Game four, in which my game was way below par and where I got duly and promptly punished for my sins.
It's instructive to work with a good computer program (or a stronger player) from move 12 onwards, just to see how many things one can do with a position down the exchange with scant compensation, even where said exchange was lost due to inattention and miscalculation.
Why dodge the Open Sicilian with 2. c3? White gets open lines, easy development and plenty of ready-made plans to pursue.
Doggy Style I actually answer your question re. the open Sicilian in my treatment of move 2, game 2.
After you look it over, then maybe you will have some interesting insight to offer me, that actually answers my concerns as I present them there? I'd be delighted to read some serious treatment of this issue
DragonflyHunter an interesting suggestion, ...Na5 - and one that has totally escaped my attention.
Houdini did suggest it after the game, and with your description it gains even more appeal with me.
As to your second question - well, obviously the handler of the black pieces didn't realize that the rook, which was exerting heavy central influence, was even in the same line with the pawn on a4 - either during the game or after it. I never even suspected anything.
I had to recheck the score following your comment, just to ascertain for myself that this was, indeed, the case.
Probably a case of 'two theaters of war' - I didn't consider the rook as having any bearing on the queenside.
Doggy_Style wrote:
Why dodge the Open Sicilian with 2. c3? White gets open lines, easy development and plenty of ready-made plans to pursue.
I remember I prepared 2.c3 to play against the Sicilian for my first OTB tournament last summer. Sicilian players often know ridiculous amounts of Najdorf or Dragon theory. I remember there was one scare-story about a Norwegian player, who was only 1600 FIDE rated, but played the Dragon at a grandmaster level, because he had memorised every top-level game played in the opening since the 1960s (No, it wasn't a young Carlsen!)
Solskytz seems to be in a similar position in that he doesn't know reems of theory. Anyway, the Alapin gives open lines and readymade plans as well - and tell me this game:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/the-dangerous-alapin-sicilian
wasn't fun to play!
Doggy Style I actually answer your question re. the open Sicilian in my treatment of move 2, game 2.
You're scared of what Black might play? forget it. Black must tread even more carefully. The Open Sicilian is a breeze to play (at our level), White gets it all... pawns and pieces in the centre, plenty of space, castling options, choices of well trodden plans (i.e. Maroczy Bind, Jugoslav Attack), thematic Knight sacs (d5 and e6 commonly). I've never made a serious study of any opening but played the exact same ones since I was about thirteen, some thirty-four years ago. If I don't know a move or the latest wrinkle, I rely on playing sensible moves to reach a playable middlegame. I like the positions I get from the Open Sicilian and have some conceptual grasp of what I should be doing but that's it. Memorizing huge opening books is for the professionals.
An interesting take... by the way, excuse my very apparent ignorance, but what is exactly the Yugoslav attack?
And one more thing, they always show these great games of Kasparov with the sicilian, and all of the other great Soviets from the past, that whenever I do dare play an open Sicilian with white and win, I feel like I was at least a Keres or something... it's nice that you put it more into proportions.
Would you be kind enough to paste here a couple of your own open Sicilian games, maybe with some annotations? I'd love to watch that (maybe even in the Yugoslav, whatever that is...)
[COMMENT DELETED FOR EXCESSIVE GENERALIZATION]
Man! the Mods are tough on this site!
but what is exactly the Yugoslav attack?
I use the term in the loosest sense because I don't know any better. White puts his Bishop on e3, his Queen on d2, castles long and pushes his King-side pawns against a fianchettoed King. Typical preparatory moves are f3, g4, h4. Usually white tries to smash through the h-file whilst Black races to smash through on the half open c-file against White's King. I use the same attack against a variety of openings e.g. Pirc, Modern.
Oh! I now see that you've used the word "exactly", let me furnish you with a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence,_Dragon_Variation,_Yugoslav_Attack,_9.Bc4
I'm sure that I've rarely played those exact moves but I've prosecuted many a Yugoslav Attack, especially in my own mind. I don't care what it's called, it works.
probably unless black can combine something with the famous "thematic" exchange sacrifice on c3, etc.... loads on theory on that... but maybe I should just start by jumping into the water...
I won many times with the open sicilian actually, but I always get this nagging feeling that I really have no idea what I'm doing... probably time to get over it...
Post a couple of your wins, annotated?
My draws against the masters in rounds 5 and 6 are coming...
Had a great tourney yesterday, here in Israel (I'm visiting now)
Never played such a strong tourney in my life! 42 participants, and I was rated 38th with my Israeli 1900 rating from ten years ago... many people, but really many, were top players in the 2400s, 2500s and 2600s.
I met none of these, but my weakest adversary was 2099, with the average being 2171, against whom I scored a very respectable 2 points out of 6 - also drawing a 2282 player. I made a 2046 performance altogether (Israeli rating is on a par with FIDE rating)
As I've been away from tournament chess for years, and basically just read, trained and played online and with friends, I was very happy with this result. I made many moves and saw many ideas that I was really proud of - and a GM who knew me many years ago and watched two of my games (the aforementioned draw, and a very closely-fought loss against an 2283 player) complimented me warmly on my play - the 2282 I drew was his student!
Nonetheless, in the last 3 weeks, because of this visit in Israel, I haven't been playing or studying almost at all - and in the few games that I did play online, my blitz rating fell down almost 100 points... I felt that if I went to this tourney at the height of my powers, I might have well scored even better, maybe making a performance in the 2100s or very close to that - as the four 2100-2200 people I played weren't that frightening, I scored 1.5/4 against them and could have scored better.
Luck wasn't at my side in this tourney! No gifts, everything I got I had to fight for the hard way.
Fascinating experience playing against such strong resistance game after game! I definitely look forward to more of that as my game improves. I think I'm even enjoying chess more that way.
I could have gone to the B tournament with great chances to win a money prize, but this would be just boring - and I would hate myself if I went there and then missed the money prize... so I decided not to enter it, but to go for the adventure. Of course I don't regret it!