{"id":2882,"date":"2014-04-19T08:32:07","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T16:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2882"},"modified":"2014-04-19T08:32:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T16:32:07","slug":"fireworks-by-the-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2882","title":{"rendered":"Fireworks by the River"},"content":{"rendered":"

After I finished my evening game in the second round of the Larry Evans Memorial, I went outside and was surprised to see some fireworks going off in the distance. Apparently this is a somewhat regular event in Reno. Anyway, it was a good metaphor for the two games I played yesterday, because they both involved some “fireworks.”<\/p>\n

In round one I had Black against Grandmaster Sergey Kudrin. I played my Bird Variation of the Ruy Lopez as usual, and he took a surprisingly long time — forty minutes on the first 8 moves. This made me overconfident, and my tenth move was a blunder (10. … Qh4?). Can you see how Kudrin took advantage?<\/p>\n

\"kudrin1\"<\/a>

White to move.<\/p><\/div>\n

FEN: r1b1k1nr\/pp3p1p\/2pp2p1\/8\/B2bP2q\/2NP4\/PP3PPP\/R1BQ1RK1 w kq – 0 11<\/p>\n

(Answers at the end of the post.)<\/p>\n

Well, that was disappointing. I still have never beaten a grandmaster in a tournament, and I thought yesterday might be the day.<\/p>\n

The second round went much better for me. I had White against Theodore Biyiasis, an expert whom I have played several times before. This time I played the King’s Gambit, and we got to the following position.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/a>

White to move.<\/p><\/div>\n

FEN:2rq1rk1\/pp2bpp1\/2n2nbp\/1B1p2B1\/3P4\/2N3NP\/PPPQ2P1\/4RRK1 w – – 0 16<\/p>\n

My opponent has just played 15. … h6, most likely expecting the bishop to retreat to e3. However, the King’s Gambit is not about retreat! What surprise did I spring on him?<\/p>\n

As for Jesse, he took care of business yesterday to the tune of two wins and no losses. Interestingly, we just barely missed playing each other in the first round. I was paired up against Kudrin on board 4, and Jesse was on board 5. His opponent was rated one point<\/em> below me (2157 to 2158). If my rating were just two points lower, our order would have been switched and I would have been on board 5 against Jesse.<\/p>\n

Overall this seems like a pretty strong edition of the Larry Evans Memorial, with sixteen titled players and with GM Alexander Onischuk as the pre-tournament favorite (or at least the highest-rated player). The total number of players is up over last year, which is an encouraging development. However, there are still fewer than there were in pre-recession days.<\/p>\n

Answers to quiz questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Kudrin played 11. Bxc6+!<\/strong>, a nice pseudo-sac of the bishop. The point is that after 11. … bc 12. Qa4<\/strong> he will either win the bishop on d4 or he will check on c6 and win my rook. If I want to I can avoid material loss by playing 12. … Bxf2+ 13. Rxf2 Bd7, but only at the cost of opening the f-file and having a perilous-looking position. I opted to make it an exchange sacrifice with 12. … Be5 13. f4 Bxc3 14. Qxc6+<\/strong>, but of course my attempts at counterplay came up short.<\/p>\n

2) However, in my second game I played a much better exchange sacrifice! In the diagram position I played 16. Rxe7! I’m not sure whether this is winning by force, but Black was in a lot of trouble after 16. … Nxe7 17. Bxf6 gf 18. Qxh6<\/strong>. The rook lift Rf1-f4-h4 looms. I won’t show you the rest of the game now because I might want to do a ChessLecture on it. Biyiasis managed to avoid getting mated right away, but White retained a great initiative and eventually won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I finished my evening game in the second round of the Larry Evans Memorial, I went outside and was surprised to see some fireworks going off in the distance. Apparently this is a somewhat regular event in Reno. Anyway, it was a good metaphor for the two games I played yesterday, because they both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,16,12],"tags":[1206,307,2489,20,2153,2858],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-positions","category-tournaments","tag-alexander-onischuk","tag-jesse-kraai","tag-larry-evans-memorial","tag-reno","tag-sergey-kudrin","tag-theodore-biyiasis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2885,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}