{"id":2987,"date":"2014-07-05T07:51:53","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T15:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2987"},"modified":"2014-07-05T07:51:53","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T15:51:53","slug":"where-the-2171s-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=2987","title":{"rendered":"Where the 2171’s are"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my first 18 years of living in California, I somehow never played a single chess game in Sacramento, the state capital. There are a few reasons. First, it’s a three-hour drive. I can’t commute between home and the tournament, as I can if the tournament is in the Bay Area. Second, there have never been any big-money tournaments there; and third, there are usually enough tournaments in the Bay Area to keep me busy.<\/p>\n

However, the planets aligned this year and I decided to play in the Sacramento Chess Championship, which started yesterday and runs through Sunday. It’s not a big-money tournament — first prize is $625, not guaranteed — and so all the big-time players are elsewhere. The highest-rated pre-registered person was in the 2300’s, and there are only, I think, five masters. But I kind of like that. It means that the tournament is actually winnable for somebody like me. Every game will be hard but no games will be ridiculously hard, as when I have to play a 2500 player.<\/p>\n

However, there is one thing we do have a lot of in Sacramento: 2171 players! There’s me, Uyanga Byambaa, and Ladia Jirasek. Both of the other two are friends of mine. I think that we should have a separate class prize for the top player rated 2171.<\/p>\n

Ladia’s father tells me that he got his rating to 2197 but then had a disastrous tournament in Las Vegas to drop back to 2171. But I’m sure that a kid with his motivation will soon reach a master rating. Maybe it’s good to have a taste of it (three measly rating points away!) so that he will appreciate it even more when he gets there.<\/p>\n

The short summary for my day yesterday is: draw as Black in round one, win as White in round two. I probably should have won my morning game against Nikunj Oza, but it was by no means as easy a win as I expected. I’ll show you a couple of positions from the game.<\/p>\n

\"oza1\"<\/a>Position after 38. Bd8. Black to move.<\/em><\/p>\n

FEN: 3B2k1\/5pbp\/p5p1\/P7\/3p4\/7P\/4rPP1\/3R2K1 b – – 0 38<\/p>\n

After the game I thought this was where I started going wrong, but now I actually think I played the right move.<\/p>\n

I played 38. … Re6!?<\/strong> The idea behind this move is that White can never take on d4 because he loses the exchange: 39. Bxd4? Rd6. Meanwhile, Black’s rook cuts off the approach of White’s king.<\/p>\n

The other option was to stay on the seventh rank, probably with 38. … Ra2<\/span>. But it’s not clear that this way is any better. After 39. Bb6 Ra4<\/span> White just walks his king up. After 39. Bb6 Ra3<\/span> (threatening … d3, which White cannot allow) 40. Bxd4 Bxd4 41. Rxd4 Rxa5<\/span> we get one of those annoying rook endgames that I’m never quite sure how to evaluate.<\/p>\n

\"oza3\"<\/a>Position after 41. … Rxa5 (analysis).<\/em><\/p>\n

FEN: 6k1\/5p1p\/p5p1\/r7\/3R4\/7P\/5PP1\/6K1 w – – 0 42<\/p>\n

I think the correct evaluation here is drawn with best play, but some winning chances for Black. I remember looking up this type of position in Reuben Fine (3P vs. 3P on the kingside, passed a-pawn with the rook in front of it on the queenside) and he said it was a draw unless White’s kingside pawns have weaknesses, which is not the case here.<\/p>\n

After 38. … Re6<\/strong> the game continued 39. Bb6 f5 40. Kf1 Kf7 41. Rd3?<\/strong> This loses a tempo and should definitely lose the game. Better was 41. Rd2.<\/p>\n

But now Black has a problem: how to make progress?<\/p>\n

\"oza2\"<\/a>Position after 41. Rd3. Black to move.<\/em><\/p>\n

FEN: 8\/5kbp\/pB2r1p1\/P4p2\/3p4\/3R3P\/5PP1\/5K2 b – – 0 41<\/p>\n

It’s easy to see that if Black’s king goes to e7, e8, or f6, the pin trick on d4 no longer works because White can escape the pin with a check.<\/p>\n

The solution is very simple: 41. … Rd6! Black plans … Ke6, … Kd5, … Rc6, and … Rc3. I don’t see anything White can do about it.<\/p>\n

Instead I was too enamored of the idea of keeping White’s king cut off. Also, I was thinking about how you’re supposed to play cat and mouse with your opponent in the endgame, probing and probing until they make a mistake. Except it didn’t work here. I probed and probed until I<\/em> made a mistake.<\/p>\n

41. … g5?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This move weakens my kingside pawns. After 42. Rf3! Kg6 43. g4 f4 44. Rd3<\/strong> I came to the sad conclusion that I had screwed up. The trouble is that White’s king now has an alternate route: he can go to g3, f3, and e4. Note also the very important point that once his king gets to f3, the pin trick doesn’t work any more.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, I missed one more winning opportunity in the time scramble, and the game petered out into a draw.<\/p>\n

After two rounds, Ladia also has 1\u00bd points. Uyanga was playing a King’s Indian Defense on board one and seemed to have some pressure, but I don’t know if it was enough to win. If she did prevail, she would have 2 points, tying for first place so far in the tournament, and also making her the leader in the all-important 2171 category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my first 18 years of living in California, I somehow never played a single chess game in Sacramento, the state capital. There are a few reasons. First, it’s a three-hour drive. I can’t commute between home and the tournament, as I can if the tournament is in the Bay Area. Second, there have never […]<\/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":[1363,10,16,12],"tags":[2910,2906,2735,2909,2907,2908,2244,588],"class_list":["post-2987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-endings","category-positions","category-tournaments","tag-cat-and-mouse","tag-ladia-jirasek","tag-pins","tag-rook-endgames","tag-sacramento","tag-seventh-rank","tag-uyanga-byambaa","tag-weaknesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987","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=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2992,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions\/2992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}