Thursday, July 31, 2008

Thundering Thursday

As promised (threatened?) my 19 move win from last Thursday's "Four Rated Games Tonight!" tournament. I had gotten off to my usual 0-2 start. It was another strong field, but no matter how strong the tournament is there is always some venturesome soul who enters the event as his first tournament. For a second week in a row I decided not to look at the wall chart and worry about who I would play. Normally I would have been fretting over whether I'd make the break or not for round three. By the time round three came I had totally forgotten there was an unrated playing in the tournament, so I think I was a little surprised by the pairing.

My rule of thumb regarding unrateds is beware of ones with Eastern European names. So when I was paired against someone whose first name is Laszlo I figured it could be a tough game. It ended out being easier then I thought.

Laszlo-Polly072408.pgn

3 comments:

tanch said...

That was a stunner! Important rule of thumb:

When castling long side against the Sicilian Dragon, the White Knight normally retains its position on c3 with the other Knight posted on b3 in the main lines (sometimes followed by the typical Black Rxc3 sac at some later stage). Alternatively, White can set up a Maroczy Bind to stymied Black's attack. Unfortunately, your opponent dallied in trying to muster a kingside attack (which never got started).

At move 12, I was already thinking, Black's dark squared bishop has a dream position, a straight line right across the board to the White king! Yowzer!

A great finish, Polly! Well done.

Polly said...

tanc: Thanks! I'm used to white trying to throw all his king side pawns at my castled king. When he dropped back to g1 with the knight he lost a lot of time. I had suggested to him that he push g4 instead and let me trade the knight if I wanted to.

Anonymous said...

I just got back from my fist ever swiss tournament! It was SO much fun. I even won 2 out of the 4 games. A bad OTB game IS better than a good day at work!!!!

My chess teacher has given me explicit instructions on how to analyze my games so it is going to take me a few days to go over each game and then I will post them on my blog. I can't wait until my next tournament!

Have a good day,

TommyG