In the first round I played one of the IS 318 girls with a 1255 rating. I've learned from past experience, don't take any of the kids from that school lightly, regardless of rating. I had played one of the boys from IS 318, and he did a number on me in time pressure. Fortunately in this tournament time pressure would not be a factor. The time control was 30/85 followed by G/60. For a "cracktion" addict like me, that's eons!
Linuxguy made the following comment on my last post. I think his observations on kids are pretty interesting.
"Personal chess coaches aside, I think one of the things that young players have (besides a cheering parent or coach) is that they can play so fast.
I have begun to see chess as more of a performance/experience art, than just plain analysis. How many games do you make terrible moves in time-trouble after playing a quality opening (or at least quality versus your opponents')? When have you ever seen a kid's play go south because they were A) in time-trouble? B) energy level drop? Despite the possible feigned boredom, I've personally never seen those things happen from a very young player.
I would not want to get in time-trouble versus youth. Keep it solid, let them mix it up first, don't give them a solvable advantage."
In a tournament with this type of time control, staying focused and keeping one's energy level up is crucial. I'm finding that my endurance for longer games is not what it used to be. I think part of that is some problems with sleep, and not doing my long distance walks and bike rides. I got to get back into that routine. This first round would be a test of my patience and endurance.
I was Black in the first round, so I'd get to see early on if she would play aggressively and attack like crazy, or play solid positional chess. She played the c3 Sicilian against my 1...c5. However instead of pushing e5, she played f3. I don't come across that line very much. The pawn duo on e4 and d4 is solid, but I find e5 gives me more problems because I don't have a knight on f6 to cover h7 after castling. As it turned out, picking off the e pawn after she pushed f4 would be the deciding factor in this game. This game was a 70+ move positional battle that came down to promoting a pawn for the decisive advantage.
TSantana-PW053031.pgn
I used to get annoyed at players who wouldn't resign even when there is no chance for time pressure cheapos. Now I look at these games as a chance to work on my "mate in x moves" skills. It's also good to look for possible stalemate chances for the opponent. I didn't come up with the quickest mate, but it got the job done.
5 comments:
Kids, even small ones, know the openings pretty well, they can give you 8-10 moves from the book. Yeah, they move fast, so if you don't manage your time well, you can get into trouble. The opposite side of it is that they miss tactics or strong moves (it doesn't mean that you don't miss it as well :) ). Yeah, they don't get tired at all, so it can play out on the long run. They still lack strategic/positional skills, it's how you get them (plus tactics, of course).
Great endgame technique, although the pawn win is positionally decisive.
White gives up light bishop exchange, then 16. is sort of a turning point. White needs to play 16.d5 (not Rb1), and then White has follow up options (rotate pieces through d4, and/or add an f4 or g4 pawn push, etc.)
I've played c3 Sicilian many times as White, it was once my repertoire. f3 is slow, but has been played by a GM. Without Nc3, f3 is _really_ slow, as in Nd2 and Ne2. The bishops "can" aim to be played at d3 and e3, but that system is almost fatally slow. Played it once against a 1250ish girl, around there, and won, but I spent most of my time examining her counter-shots, and successfully crossing my fingers. ;-)
When it comes to results, I think there is this tradeoffs conversation that can take place internally.
First off all, chess always requires careful moves and avoidance of sloppy mistakes, but the question goes like this: Do I want to
A) Improve my chess, find the truth of each position, try to divine the jugular on move 6 (harhar)
- or -
B) Play from past experience, go solid, stay strong on clock and energy while remaining vigilant for opponent errors.
B can work, save time, yield results, but especially if there is a modicum of creativity to the game. Note, creative moves can be played out quickly if you found them from some opening book, tried them out against Crafty already, etc. Almost like a prepared win.
I won one of those game B's recently online in about 8 minutes, I'll try and find it for my next blog.
Linux: I tend to be more of a type B player. Try to play solid moves, and see what the opponent is going to throw at me. At fast time controls that can be a double edged sword if they throw something unexpected at you.
This game was clearly a B game. Snapped up the free pawn, and then just used my end game experience to work down to something that was manageable. Since kids tend to go for tactical shots, I wanted to avoid risking my edge.
I doubt your opp knew more of the opening then just the moves. Then here middlegame i dont understand since pieces are put of more active diagnals, pieces are not developed to more active squares, ... . But i guess that is what one can expect from a still improving 1200+ player.
@linuxguy
I guess it's best that you are a mixture of A and B. That you are still courious about the possibilities of the position but relay on your past experience also to know which move you dont like.
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