{"id":5894,"date":"2019-06-20T15:04:51","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T23:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5894"},"modified":"2019-06-20T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T23:14:08","slug":"when-a-miss-really-is-as-good-as-a-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=5894","title":{"rendered":"When a Miss Really is as Good as a Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last weekend I played in the third round of the PRO Chess\nLeague Summer Series, in which the fans of the San Francisco Mechanics squared\noff against the fans of the St. Louis Arch Bishops. I won both of my games\nagainst a player named Typewriter44, and when I finished we had a\ncomfortable-looking 15\u00bd – 11\u00bd advantage. But that lead quickly vanished and it\nremained neck-and-neck until the end, when St. Louis\u2019s bottom board beat our\nbottom board to tie up the match at 22-22!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the league\u2019s arcane rules, a tie was as good as a loss\nfor us. Each team gets 1 point for a tie, but the tiebreaker is which team has\nmore players, and St. Louis got the tiebreaker point. The thing is that we\nreally had to beat them to have any shot at catching them or Chengdu for second\nplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other phase of the Summer Series is a 4-person\nelimination tournament between the \u201cpro\u201d players. That came down to a match\nbetween Varuzhan Akobian (St. Louis) and Sam Shankland (San Francisco). They\ndrew their 15-minute game but Akobian won their bullet game (1-minute chess).\nSo St. Louis also got 3 points for the elimination phase, which combined with\ntheir 2 points for the fan match put them into first place. The standings for\nthe whole three-week series were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Louis \u2013 14, Chengdu \u2013 12, San Francisco \u2013 8, San Diego \u2013\n2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is still a chance that San Francisco will get into the playoffs, because two of the third-place teams will qualify by a popular vote. What I haven\u2019t told you before is that the above group is only Group A, and in future weeks we will have Group B, Group C, Group D, and then the playoffs. I\u2019ll let you know when it\u2019s time to vote for San Francisco to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my games, Typewriter44 (rated 1602 on chess.com) did not put up very strong resistance. This game is an example of how good the King\u2019s Gambit can be. I was pleased with the result, but then after the game I looked at the computer analysis on chess.com and realized that I had whiffed rather badly. Their computer software (Stockfish, maybe?) showed me with a 3.8-pawn advantage after move 16, but my 17th<\/sup> move shrank the advantage to 0.15 pawns, after which I had to win the game all over again. But in this case, a miss was as good as a mile — I won almost as fast as I would haveif I had played the right move!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dana Mackenzie \u2013\nTypewriter44<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. ed ef 4. Nf3 Qxd5 5. d4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Qd8 7. Bxf4 Bb4 8. Bc4 O-O 9. O-O Bg4 10. Ne2 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chessbase tells me that this is a TN. I liked the move\nbecause everything in White\u2019s position is solidly defended, it lets me fortify\nmy d-pawn with c3, and it begins the process of transferring my pieces to the kingside,\nwhere I am planning to attack. If Black plays 10. \u2026 Nd5, I thought that 11. Bg5\nwould be a little bit awkward for him, e.g. 11. \u2026 Qd6 12. c3 Ba5 13. Qb3. Of\ncourse I wasn\u2019t sure, because the game was played at a rapid time control (game\nin 10 minutes plus 2 seconds per move). Instead Black continued developing, but\nsomehow he drifted a little bit and his position very rapidly became critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. \u2026 Nbd7 11. c3 Ba5?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t like retreating the bishop this direction because it\nis now unable to help defend the kingside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. Qc2 Bb6 13. Rae1 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t have a really concrete plan yet, but experience shows that it\u2019s a good idea to invite all of your pieces to the party. Meanwhile, Black is facing a considerable amount of awkwardness. His pieces are all stepping on each others\u2019 toes, and his queen rook has no way to get into the game. His next move really highlights the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. \u2026 Rc8?! 14. b4 c6?! 15. Ng3 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point 15. Bd6 was already really good, but this methodical move sticks to my plan, and I think it is also perfectly okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. \u2026 Bc7 16. Bxc7 Qxc7?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The queen had to stay on d8 to keep White\u2019s rook out of e7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 16. \u2026 Qxc7. White to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: 2r2rk1\/ppqn1ppp\/2p2n2\/8\/1PBP2b1\/2P2NN1\/P1Q3PP\/4RRK1 w – – 0 17<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White to play and win!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. Bd3?? \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the most interesting point, psychologically, in the game. The problem is that I\u2019m accustomed to playing people who are about at my rating level. It doesn\u2019t usually happen that I get completely winning (+4 pawn) positions after 16 moves. So I just didn\u2019t realize we had gotten to the \u201cWhite to play and win\u201d stage. I was still looking for incremental ways to strengthen my position. I thought the pressure on f7 had run its course, and I really wanted my bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this was wrong. Black has terribly bungled the position. The f7 pawn is critically weak, and his giving my rook carte blanche to go to e7 should have been the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you found the winning move yet? It\u2019s very simple: 17. Ng5!, building up pressure both on h7 and f7. Black is in a terrible spot. He can\u2019t move either knight because he would then get mated on h7. He can\u2019t play \u2026 Re8 to keep my rook out of e7, because I would just trade rooks and play Bxf7+. But the reason I didn\u2019t play this move was that I didn\u2019t see how White wins after 17. Ng5 h6. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is simple and beautiful: 18. Nxf7! Rxf7 19. Re7. Now 19. \u2026 Rf8 is forced, and White crashes through with 20. Rxf6!! (see diagram)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Position after 20. Rxf6 (analysis). Black to move.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FEN: 5rk1\/ppqnRrp1\/2p2R1p\/8\/1PBP2b1\/2P3N1\/P1Q3PP\/6K1 b – – 0 20<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Game over. After 20. \u2026 gf 21. Qg6+ Kh8 22. Rxf7 Rxf7 23. Bxf7 White threatens mate two different ways, and Black can\u2019t stop them both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For missing this idea, I should have my King\u2019s Gambiteer license revoked. If you play the King\u2019s Gambit, you\u2019ve got to see combinations like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, even though the computer is now showing the position as equal, I managed to win almost as quickly as I would have after 17. Ng5! I got some help from my opponent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. \u2026 h6 18. Nf5 Bxf5 19. Bxf5 Rfe8?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrong rook. He needed to break the pin on the d7 knight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20. Ne5 Nxe5 21. Bxc8 Qxc8 22. de Nd7 23. Qf5 Rf8 24. e6! fe 25. Qxe6+ Kh8 26. Rxf8+ resigns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He can take my rook in two different ways, but they both\nlose material. It was that kind of game for Black. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend I played in the third round of the PRO Chess League Summer Series, in which the fans of the San Francisco Mechanics squared off against the fans of the St. Louis Arch Bishops. I won both of my games against a player named Typewriter44, and when I finished we had a comfortable-looking 15\u00bd […]<\/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":[37,1363,11,9,3669],"tags":[3730,5,4368,2735,4369,3923,1598],"class_list":["post-5894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-games","category-openings","category-pro-chess-league","tag-invite-all-the-pieces-to-the-party","tag-kings-gambit","tag-mating-attacks","tag-pins","tag-sacs-on-f7","tag-stepping-on-toes","tag-weak-squares"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894","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=5894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}