{"id":2447,"date":"2013-09-02T22:20:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T06:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2013-09-02T22:22:05","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T06:22:05","slug":"near-death-experiences-on-the-chessboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2447","title":{"rendered":"Near-Death Experiences (on the chessboard)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2013 CalChess State Championship had one recurring theme for me — amazing escapes. In round 1 I lost (well, sacrificed) a pawn and managed to draw. In round 2, as I showed in my last entry, I was down an exchange for a pawn and still managed to win. Round 3 was my only relatively simple game, a 35-move victory.<\/p>\n

But then things got seriously crazy. In round four I played a never-to-be repeated gambit that I actually analyzed about 10 years ago and thought was okay for me. But it wasn’t. My position spiraled downhill to the point where I was three pawns down (on the board) — but even worse than that, in Rybka’s analysis I was TEN pawns behind! Nevertheless, I managed to save a draw. It’s hard to remember a single game, at least since I was a beginner, where I was more busted and yet saved the game.<\/p>\n

I was not intending to show the game in this post, because I didn’t want to embarrass my opponent. But one of the people who saw it (and reads this blog) asked me to, and what the audience asks for, the audience gets.<\/p>\n