{"id":513,"date":"2009-04-10T23:52:54","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T07:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=513"},"modified":"2009-04-10T23:57:43","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T07:57:43","slug":"far-west-open-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"Far West Open — Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the first day of the Far West Open, my perfect score for the year is still intact — two wins, no draws, no losses. But it took an amazing stroke of luck for me to win the second game!<\/p>\n

There are 11 titled players here, quite a respectable showing, given the competition from Foxwoods. Some of the usuals came: boards one and two were Sergei Kudrin and Melikset Khachiyan. Jesse played on board five both rounds, and David was on board eight.<\/p>\n

In the first round things went pretty much by the book, with no upsets on any of the top boards in the Open section. I was paired down against a player rated 1850, and won a fairly smooth game as Black. My opponent seemed to be a very cautious player — every time he had a chance to play for some complications, he decided not to. But ironically, the only time that he played an aggressive move, it turned out to be his downfall!<\/p>\n

In the second round I had Black against IM Vladimir Mezentsev. The game was a quiet Two Knights Defense (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3), and I thought that I handled the position really well up until I got into time trouble. Then, as so often happens, crazy things started happening. I had about 8 minutes left to make 10 moves from this position:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Black to move.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here the time pressure got to me and I blundered with 31. … Nb7?<\/font> According to Fritz I should have played 31. … Nd7, and White has only a slight advantage (0.4 pawns). If you want to make this position into a quiz, see if you can figure out what is wrong with 31. … Nb7.<\/p>\n

If you answered 32. Qe4, then you made the same error in thinking that I did. Go back and listen again to my ChessLecture on “Reversing the Move Order.” 32. Qe4? is met effectively by 32. … Nd6, when White does not have time for 33. f6? Nxe4 34. fe Nd6. Instead, White should (and did) play 32. f6!<\/font> With this reversal of the “expected” move order, he secures close to a winning advantage.\u00c2\u00a0I had to play 32. … Qxf6<\/font>, and now\u00c2\u00a033. Qe4! Nd6 34. Qxh7+ Kf8 35. Rf1<\/font> and it looks as if Black is done for.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

At first I was pretty discouraged here, but then I started to notice some amazing swindling possibilities. With less than two minutes left on my clock, I played 35. … Qxf1+!<\/font> Incidentally, according to Fritz, this isn’t just a swindle, it’s actually Black’s best move. The game continued 36. Kxf1 Rxc1+<\/font> and now White blundered with 37. Ke2?<\/font> He had to play 37. Kf2, but even on this it’s worth noting that Black gets huge counterplay: 37. … Bg8! 38. Qd3 e4! 39. Qe2 (if 39. Qd2? e3+! wins material) 39. … Bc4 40. Qd2 Rf1+ 41. Ke3 etc. Although Fritz gives White about a 0.9-pawn advantage, Black’s pieces are wonderfully active and it will be very challenging for White to actually win this game.<\/p>\n

But Vladimir had no sense of danger here. In fact, my time pressure actually worked to my advantage, because I think it looked to him as if my move 35. … Qxf1+ was just a desperate time-pressure move that didn’t have any real threats. He played his moves very rapidly here, like a person who has nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Position after 37. Ke2? (Black to play)<\/em><\/p>\n

I played 37. … Bg8!<\/font> Vladimir still suspected nothing, and played 38. Qd3??<\/font> He could still have gotten a draw by repetition with 38. Qg6 Bf7 39. Qh7 Bg8 etc. Any other move would lose the bishop on c2. But his move 38. Qd3 loses a whole lot more — it loses the queen after 38. … Bc4!<\/font> So my half-point swindle became a full-point swindle, and White resigned.<\/p>\n

Even though this was very lucky,\u00c2\u00a0I do feel as if I made some good positional judgements earlier in the game that made\u00c2\u00a0my “stroke of good fortune” possible. Opening the a-file and penetrating with the rook to a1 turned out to be very important. Also, I had for a long time tried to get White to commit to b3-b4 so that I could control the c4 square — and that indeed turned out to be the key square in the combination.<\/p>\n

Now it’s time to get some sleep so that I can (I hope) pull off some more upsets in Saturday’s games!<\/p>\n

P.S. Jesse and David also went 2-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the first day of the Far West Open, my perfect score for the year is still intact — two wins, no draws, no losses. But it took an amazing stroke of luck for me to win the second game! There are 11 titled players here, quite a respectable showing, given the competition from Foxwoods. […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","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=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}