Houston Hangover

Usually I would not go to the chess club on Monday after spending the weekend at the scholastic nationals. Many trips I would not even get back on time, but I couldn't use the "My flight was delayed" card on this trip. Nationals are physically and emotionally draining, but since the last round of the club championship was scheduled for 12/10 I couldn't really skip the round. Taking a last round bye would have left a player with no game. I was going to have to be there any way to take care of the results and prizes, so there was no point in trying to reschedule my game. Also it's bad form for the TD to state every week that there were no more make up dates, and then want to make up her game. Besides I was the knucklehead who chose the dates. Note to self: Don't schedule round dates without having one's personal calendar up to date.

I played the number 1 guy on my usual suspects list. This would be our 73rd game since 1991. Number 2 on the list I've only played 58 times. (Italics for the sarcasm impaired.)Looking through old scores from pre-MSA days I couldn't find any other games between the two of us. This would be our 16th game this year. Going into this game I had 6 wins, 7 losses and two draws for the year.

Silvio and I always have amusing games with each other. Some of our blunders against each other are totally crazy. He's the player that twice went for a smothered mate against me by putting his queen on g1 (g8). Both times it was a blunder, however the second time he did I actually resigned thinking it was going to be mate. Serious duh! Pre-time delay I'd drive him crazy with my no losing chances claims. I'd be up material, but no time to win.

Monday night's game was not one of our wild and crazy games. It was pretty tame for us. Though he does have this annoying tendency to play some random move to begin, and the game ends out transposing into some position that I'm not happy with.




Lately when I end out playing against d4, I have a difficult time getting the bishop on c8 onto a useful square. Lately I've been trying a queen side fianchetto, but that hasn't been working so well. In this game my difficult piece was my b8 knight. It took 24 moves before I got it off the back rank. I dodged a serious bullet after my overly aggressive 17 ...Bd4. He blocks the attack with 18. Ne3. Every queen move seemed to eventually lose the B on d4. I couldn't sort it all out, and I played probably the worst of the possible queen moves when I chose 18Qb4. He can simply play 19. Rc4 QXb2, 20 Rxd4. I can't recapture the rook because of 21 Bh7+ winning the queen. Fortunately he did not see that move, and played 19. b3?

We simplified to rooks and pawns. Even though his rooks were more active I thought with my superior pawn structure I'd be okay. He had an isolated d pawn, but I had no way of piling on it. He ended out using it to break up my queen side with 32. d6. Eventually he won a pawn and used a Lucina type bridge to block my rock off the b file. Once he pushed 50. b7 I resigned. I guess it was a proper resignation since Fritz came up with the following mate in

This tournament was frustrating due to the poor turnout. The club lost $500, and only got one new player that had never played there before. I guess we'll think twice about guaranteeing that kind of money again. Congratulations to Lonnie Kwartler and John Kelly for becoming 2007 Co-Champions of The Bob Peretz Chess Club, scoring 4-1 each. Leif Pressman was 3rd with 3.5. Isaac Sherman won the Under 1800 prize with 3-2. Dario Dell'Orto won the under 1600 prize with 2-3. He also won the biggest upset award for his second round win against yours truly.