Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Wacky Wednesday! - The Jet Lag Edition

I got back from Spain last night. Our flight from Madrid to New York was almost three hours late. This was a combination of mechanical issues and crappy weather in New York. I did not get to play any chess over there. Unlike a number of European countries I've visited most of the locals don't speak much English. As for myself "No hablo Espanol". Despite the lack of chess we had a very nice time, and with the xception of Saturday afternoon and evening it was rain free.

Today's WW comes from a game that I played last summer the day after getting back from Budapest. The lesson I learned that night was don't play G/30 the day after returning from six time zones away. In the first round I was up a piece, overlooked my opponent's hanging rook, and I think I flagged. I didn't have a complete scoresheet. In the second round I flagged up a pawn. In the third round I had this nice position that I manged to mangle big time.

I'm black in this position. What's not to like about black's position? Up a pawn, protected passer on d4, excellent pawn structure and active pieces. White's pawn structure is fractured, his pieces aren't very active, and his king is in the middle.

White plays 31. e5? Black to move and lose.

31...Re8??? (31...Qxe5+ "seems" like a strong response) 32. Bd5+ Kh8 33. Qxg3 1-0

The moral of the story: Don't play chess when severely jet lagged. I will not be playing tonight.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome; glad you had a blast in Spain. At least you got "No hablo español" right; there was a local radio commercial which messed up with trying to tell everyone they spoke Spanish with "Se hablo español".

The endgame position looks nice, but I wonder if Bishops of opposite colors gives White decent drawing chances.

Polly said...

With the rooks and queens still on the board opposite colored bishops aren't such a factor. Winning the second pawn with Qxe5 would certainly help black a lot. But even if black only draws it's certainly better then the actual outcome.

transformation said...

sorry Polly, but somehow i dont quite have your link for cycling, was it?

i was checking to see what the time was on the marathon, and perchance info 'there' had the results?

how did you do? eager fans here! .... warmly, dk

Polly said...

The marathon turned into a 10K for me. It's a long story. I will post a story on my triathlon blog in a couple of days.

http://nytrigal.blogspot.com/ is my tri blog but it's been neglected for awhile.