Busy lately with family and work responsibilities with minimal sleep so my correspondence chess has suffered considerably, but managed to join the Main Line Chess Club a few weeks ago with the intent to focus almost solely on OTB play save for a game or two played on the chess.com server with people I like and trust.
Played my first reasonably slow time control game [G/55 d10] in years on 4/29 (and got paired up and subsequently smashed in 22 moves with the white pieces). The blitz tournament a couple weeks back was a lot of fun and the environment was great with a couple masters and several experts in the room, but slow chess is where I have to focus myself if I care to improve. I also played another slower game [G/65 d10] two days ago (also at the MLCC) as the second game in a five round swiss which I won playing the black pieces. The game was boring for the most part and super grindy, but I managed to find some complications which gave an advantage in the ending which turned out to be enough for the point. Also, most recently I played a game which was my first miniature in tournament play which was a Spanish game that illustrated the primary theme of white dominating the center and earning the full point by virtue of this domination.
Here are the games I've mentioned with my first attempts at annotation in a long, long time.
Rob Fusco (1559) vs. Frank Jackson (1928), 4/29/2014, Main Line Chess Club G/50, d10
1.e4 e5
Having played 1.d4 since I began playing in tournaments, I decided that 1.e4 was to be my opening move with white for the foreseeable future because of the tactical positions which come from it with the idea that it will force me to calculate more often and more accurately - especially if there are consequences. I did a ton of thinking about my choice early on to play 1.d4 and I if I'm being honest with myself I should say that I was fearful of wild, tactical positions and was much more at home playing slow, positional games. I think, in short, that I was afraid of a fight. This has all changed.
2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6
Now, not ever having played 1.e4 in a slow time control I knew there would be many lines and variations I would have to be familiar with, and I've seen Nf6 played before in games I've studied (Karpov - Korchnoi, 1971), and perhaps instead of "studied" I should just say honestly "seen before." I was most "familiar" with lines involving 3...a6 where the light square bishop either takes (exchange/Berlin) or retreats to a4 (every other damn system/opening), so 3...Nf6 caught me off guard.
4.0-0 [49] {note: I will add the time left on the clock in brackets where pertinent}
So here I thought that if 4...Nxe4 5.Re4 or 5.d4 [Nxd4 6.Nxd4 exd4 7.Re1] should regain the pawn with little trouble.
4...Nxe4 5.Bxc6
In retrospect this was a flippant decision that betrayed my initial ideas and is a mistake because it relinquishes the bishop pair for no real reason.
5...dxc6 6.Nxd5 [47]
More active was 6.Re1. There's a reason this is a main line move in many variations!
6...Be7 [49] 7.d3 [41]
Very passive play. Yet again, Re1 is begging to be played.
7...Nd6 8.Nc3 0-0 9.h3 [36]
This felt a bit unnecessary. I would have been better off playing something which develops a piece, for instance 9.Be3
9...Be6 10.Bf4 [32]
Another inaccuracy. Now it's possible for black to begin something of an attack with 10...g5.
10...Re8 11.Qh5 [30]
White has no clear plan except to place pieces on the kingside and try to cause trouble for the black king. Perhaps better would have been to (again) play Re1.
11...Bf6
With this move black prepares ...g6 and clears the e-file for his rook.
12.Ng4 [27]
An obvious blunder. With this move black clears away one of white's more active pieces with...
12...Bxg4 [40] 13.hxg4
with the idea to perhaps get play on the h-file. Now black saddles white with an isolated a-pawn and doubled c-pawns with...
13...Bxc3 14.bxc3 Qf6
15.g3 [17] Qxc3
Unnecessarily sacrificing a pawn to follow through with the too-slow plan of playing Kg2 and Rh1. Bd2 might have offered white better chances, though ...Rd2 keeps one whites rooks tied down to the defense of this piece. White is very close to being completely lost here.
16.Kg2 g6 17.Qh6 Qg7 [31] 18.Qh4
18...f6 19.Bh6 Qf7 20.Rh1
White is attempting to get play on the h-file, but his attack is too slow, his light squares on the kingside far too weak, black's pieces are active, there are no concrete follow-up lines and he is down a pawn. Admittedly this is not my best game.
A long time ago NM Vadim Martirosov told me that objectivity is the best tool in a chess player's toolbox. He was absolutely correct.
20...Re2 21.Be3 [11] Rae8 [20]
Now white is completely busted. The c2 pawn will fall, the light squares are weak and white's play from the opening has been flawed and uninspired. Fatigue took its toll with the blunder
22.c4?? Rxe3
0 - 1
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