Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Wacky Wednesday! Payback is a .......(edited)

Yesterday I mentioned that the two games that I lost in the recently concluded event were against opponents I had beaten in our previous game. In round one Reva paid me back for the game at the New York State Championship. In round three Peter Wojnar got a chance to avenge himself for the ugly loss he incurred during the Westchester CC Summer Round Robin. This time he enjoyed the fruits of some ugly moves on my part. Sometimes we get to enjoy dinner, other times we are dinner.

"I'll have the fish of the day."
"I'll take that to go."

This was one of those games I felt like that fish. Just swimming along minding my own business, and bam! Where did that bird come from? In my case it was the White queen and rook that swooped in. My biggest problem putting my b8 knight on c6 instead of d7. That move would come back to bite me when I was forced to relieve the pin of the knight on f6. Here's the game. (This is the correct one! The first one I had was our previous game where he blundered.)

PWojnar-PW110409.pgn


Once again I saw the threat and the defense, but when White didn't play what I was expecting I forgot about the threat. With my knight pinned on f6, I knew I had to concern myself with the eventual e4. However my response to e4 would be g5 to block the bishop. I just didn't want to open up my castled position with g5 until it became necessary. I expected him to play e4 after he brought his bishop to d3, but he delayed the move and completed his king side development with Ne2 and O-O. After awhile I just didn't think he was going to play the move. It wasn't until he played f4 that I realized my defense to e4 was no longer viable. At that point it was too late.

The game was done in an hour. That's not a good thing when playing such a long time control. My play was for the birds. If nothing else it gave me a good excuse to post a few of my "osprey going fishing" pictures.

12 comments:

From the patzer said...

So i guess you were black? If so adjust your pgn header!

Seems you blundered your B on h3, after that the game was over.

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's just an incorrect header... it's just not the right game. There's no pinned knight on f6, bishop on d3, etc.

Polly said...

Anonymous is correct. I had uploaded my previous game with him. I was having one of my dyslexic moments when uploading the game. I have fixed the post with the correct game.

LinuxGuy said...

Interesting game; perhaps I should try the Nimzo-Indian as well.

White usually delays a3, letting Black play ...c5 from what I recall in the Zurich '53 games. So after the early a3..BxN..bxB, you could probably try dxc, which looks strong for Black.

You were the one with the initiative, Black has the attack. White has made one more pawn move than Black, but b5 was with tempo, so Black is actually "White" and has the attack. I find it so amusing and get a bit giggly, even though you were smart to observe the e3-e4-e5 threat ahead of time.

I don't think it's all that scary. I'd rather have that knight go to a5 and then c4, than be back at b8.

One attempt to "escape" the e5 threat is simply to play ...g5, then if he plays fxg, you play Nf6 to d5, threatening a fork at e3. He can't play gxh or you would take his bishop on h4, so you can recapture. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I would give it a hard look most likely.

I just chuckled that you thought that you were purely on the defensive. The ...g5 and ...e5 idea looks interesting, although perhaps should not have played ...b5 then in that case(?)

The defense, that "automatic" pawn recapture on f6 was the fatal blow. Perhaps you could get a rook up there and sacrifice the exchange, but at least to extend the game a little longer.

Yeah, I don't think it's really natural to see those moves swooping down either. It takes discipline to want to play defense well and acknowledge what is upon them, so a lot of people probably don't.

At least it was a creative game/result, intriguing opening.

LinuxGuy said...

The Rook to c8 move seemed unnecessary since your queen is covering c5 for the pawn push to that square, and the Rc8 can come later if needed.

I like your stories and writing style. Too bad there aren't more active fun chess blogs to read like yours. Go play a tournament people! :-)

I like the color commentary, but have edited that out of my blog since most people don't seem to want to know the (distracting) mannerisms that kids make during a game, for instance (like staring at your eyes while you look at the board). I don't even think about this stuff anymore, but I have to think someone besides me will be thrown off by something like this the first time they notice it (lots of kids do this, BTW).

Anyway, I like your commentary on your games, it's easy to follow what happened at the board.

LinuxGuy said...

Actually, I don't care what kids do, I'm just thankful that someone shows up at tournaments since it seems like chess is slowly dying here in the states, particularly among adults.

I still sorta haven't gotten over that Kasparov clip that I saw lost night. He mentioned how he championed chess among corporate sponsors, then the next wave of "kids" comes in and they simply accept whatever FIDE proposes. Then there is the old comment from Yermo basically saying "how much social skills can you build up from looking at Chessbase all day?" I think in the USA, chess is promoted as a "This will make your kids smart", but not as a professional sport. It doesn't have much of a professional "face" to it here.

Polly said...

The problem with ...g5 is this. 15... g5 16. fxg5 Nd5 17. Rf3 e5 18. c4 e4 19. Rg3 h5 20. cxd5 exd3 21. Qxd3 Na5 22. Nf4. It's looking pretty ugly Black. It puts up a little more resistance then my move, but it's still bad for Black.

LinuxGuy said...

Wow, it's not just losing but Black is getting mated still.

I didn't see the tactic, after 17.Rf3, I thought 17..gxh and if 18.Rg3, then ...f6 covers the g5 pawn. But I missed 18. Bxg! winning, and if ...Qxg 19. Rg3 pins the queen to the king.

I was amazed to see the mates after 17...e5, a move which is completely hopeless except for possible White misakes.

Thanks for the correction!

I like this opening, full of tactics, Black simply has to be wary. I wouldn't be thinking ...g5 at any point after seeing all this, unless White is on the rocks.

I know that when Nc6 is blocking in the c-pawn on c7, that ..e5 becomes the focal point for the natural pawn break, but haven't looked at it much.

Polly said...

I've had some wild games in this line where White has castled almost immediately and I've pushed g5 and gotten a really good attack. It can be double edged. White is better off delaying castling to see what Black will do there.

Here I just erred with the Nc6 move. Amazing how an innocent loooking developing move like Nc6 can have such consequences in a line where it shouldn't be played.

Aziridine said...

Instead of either knight move on move 6, 6...c5 is definitely the way to go, when White's centre comes under pressure - just what you want in the Nimzo!

Polly said...

Azir: Yes, c5 is another move I left out. I'm not sure what possessed me to go out of book so much.

Anonymous said...

Wacky Wednesday! Will you have a 'Manic Monday' post? (apologies to The Bangles)