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A
New York Chess Player
(Lessons From The Marshall Chess Club)
by
Larry
Tamarkin
11-13-2008
4-Rated Games Tonight!
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After a
long pause I am back with annotated games from the Marshall Chess Club's
excellent 4-Rated Games Tonight!
This
event, run by director Steve Immitt (and his subs when he is not available),
is one of the longest running continuing weekly chess tournaments in
America.
The
reason I was away for so many months after having planned to make this an
almost weekly column is that my health was poor during this time period.
I wasn't very badly ill but my stamina and energy were extremely badly
affected and some of the medication that I took during this time helped my
health but often made me even less energetic (maybe I had that same
condition that Kramnik had for a spell!) making me very tired on a rather
constant basis and leaving me unenthusiastic even for playing on the
Internet Chess Club.
Now that
I'm back and somewhat regaining my strength I hope to do this column as much
as originally intended and of course as too improve my play and rating
through this work as much as possible! Readers, please let me and the
editors of Chessville know if you like (or even hate), my column.
Though I
am dedicated to creating it I do not want to 'inflict' this column on people
if they react en-mass negatively toward it. I also welcome any criticism
and comments dear readers wish too make about my writing style and
annotation ability (or lack of). Hopefully you won't want to completely
bash me though - Remember - This is a completely volunteer effort!
Tamarkin,Larry S (2084)
- Ascherman,Jonathan Leo (1594) [E20]
4-Rated Games Tonight! (1), 13.11.2008
1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 e6 4.g3!
       
  
 
     
In
fact the Catalan opening is a new choice for me. I am indeed
impressed by Kramniks many games with this subtle and powerful opening
choice. Of course I don't understand chess anywhere as well as even a
2350 player so I figured the best time too play it is here against a
very low rated (but still, somewhat underrated), young opponent.
4...Bb4+ 5.Nc3 c5 6.dxc5 Bxc5 7.Bg2 0–0 8.Bg5 dxc4 9.Qa4!?
This is over-confidence as I was already thinking that I could damage
my opponent's king-side pawn structure and perhaps even invite him to
take my f2 pawn with check. As often happens, the darn chess engine
suggest things are much different then I thought they were!
9...Qb6!?
He
goes for it!
10.Bxf6?!
10.Qxc4!? Bxf2+ 11.Kf1 Qc5 12.Qh4 Be3! 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.Ne4! With
some nice advantage but who can resist taking that f6-knight right
away and damaging Black's king-side pawn cover?
10...Bxf2+! 11.Kf1 gxf6
Now Black is better - good thing I was totally unaware of this during
the game!
12.Qxc4 Nc6?!
This natural move gives away the slight advantage that Black now has;
after 12...Be3! (so that Black can now freely move the queen again)
13.Na4 Qa5 14.Qg4+ Kh8 15.Qe4 Bh6 16.Rd1 Nc6
Black is very well placed with his two-bishops.
13.Rd1?!
One dumb (but natural) move follows another. After 13.Ne4!? Bd4
14.Nxd4 Nxd4 15.e3 Nf5 16.Qc3! (16.Nxf6+?! Kh8 17.Qc3 Nxe3+ 18.Ke2
e5!‚ could be trouble.) 16...e5 17.Kf2 Bd7! is also quite
nice for Black.
13...Be3 14.Qh4 Qxb2 15.Qxf6
 
During the game I was still convinced that I was near-winning...
unfortunately that is not true...
15...Qc2 16.Bh3 b5?!
Strong here was 16...Qg6! 17.Qxg6+ fxg6! 18.Kg2 Nb4 19.Rd6 Kf7
20.Rhd1 (20.Rf1 Ke7! )
20...Ke7 21.Ne5 Rf2+ 22.Kh1 Nd5!
is fun for Black.
17.Rd3!=
17...Qc1+??
17...b4!? 18.Rxe3 bxc3 19.Rxc3 Qd1+ 20.Kf2!? Qxh1 21.Qg5+ Kh8 22.Rc1!±
18.Kg2
Now I'm winning very easily. During the game I always thought I was
winning, but it turns out to just not be the case...
18...Qb2 19.Rxe3 b4 20.Rb1 Qc2 21.Qg5+ Kh8 22.Qh6 Ba6
23.Ne1
23.Qf6+ Kg8 24.Rxe6!
23...Qd2 24.Ne4 Qd5 25.Qf6+ Kg8 26.Qg5+
I
eventually won through the time-pressure - good thing too as I pretty
much forgot about the clock while enjoying my won position too much.
In fact I recently lost to a 1550 player in the 2008 Nassau Ch., (in
which I am also doing the annotated bulletins), forcing me to
withdraw due to my so bad-form. How can I turn this around?
1–0
Tamarkin,Larry S (2084)
- Figler,Ilya (2341) [B27]
4-Rated Games Tonight!
(2), 13.11.2008
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6 3.c3 d5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.c4 e6 6.d4 exd5 7.Bg5
My good
friend and sometimes coach, Senior Master Ilya Figler agreed to a draw here
for a variety of reasons, most importantly because there
were so many heavyweights in this tourney that we both felt we would get
easier pairings in successive rounds.
For Ilya this worked -
even with 2
draws in the 4 rounds he managed the 3 pts needed to finish in a tie for 2nd
(Super Grandmaster Giorgi Kacheishvili winning outright with 3½ pts).
½–½
Odundo,Akollo (1931) -
Tamarkin,Larry S (2084) [B90]
4-Rated Games Tonight!
(3), 13.11.2008
I
know Akollo mostly through my dear friend 65 year-old Frank Paciulli - a
dedicated "B" player who shook Bobby Fischer's hand at the Manhattan Chess
Club in 1971 shortly after he defeated Petrosian in the candidates’ matches
that year.
Frank still remembers that night fondly and recalls that Bobby
was a very charming and unassuming person on meeting a total stranger around
the same age. That night Bobby won some crazy-long blitz tournament at the
club yielding a draw in only one game to I.M. (Senior Master at that time),
Walter Shipman!
Anyway Frank drives to a lot of tournaments with Akollo
(and others), both of them winning many class prizes along the way.
1.e4
c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 a6
Against lower-rated
competition I have very good results with the Najdorf as Black - the
stronger players often employ 'Anti-Najdorf' openings against me such as
3.Bb5+ winning boring and long games against my still-inferior understanding
of the game!
In this game I felt confident that I would understand the
coming middle-game better then Akollo.
6.a4 g6 7.Bc4 Qa5 8.0–0 Bg7 9.Be3
Ng4?
I played this move with a lot of confidence that it would cause
White trouble - turns out its really bad because of the very-natural
looking reply, 10.Nd5!
Due to
White's lead
in development I would have to tread very carefully - for example, after,
10...Nxe3?! 11.fxe3 e6?! (instead the groveling, 11...Qd8 is
annihilated by, 12.Rxf7! Kxf7 13.Nc7+ e6 14.Bxe6+! Bxe6 15.Ndxe6 Qe7
16.Qd5! with a crushing position.) 12.Qf3 Rf8! yucky kind of move
to play but still best. (12...0–0? 13.Ne7+ Kh8 14.Nxc8+- White wins.) 13.Nf6+ Bxf6 14.Qxf6 Nd7 15.Qf4 Qc5 16.Bb3 Qe5 (16...e5?? 17.Bxf7++-)
17.c3 and White has a slight advantage - Nothing serious among class
players that we are.
10.Bc1??
A
horrible losing move not too different from the stupid blunders I am still
making against higher-rated opponents as well.
10...Qc5!
After this the game is pretty much
over - Akollo gamely fights on, but Black's advantage is just too much.
11.Be2 Nxf2 12.Kxf2 Bxd4+ 13.Ke1 Nc6 14.Nd5 0–0 15.c3 Bg1 16.b4 Qa7 17.Bb2
Be6 18.b5 Bxd5 19.Qxd5 Ne5 20.c4 Rac8 21.Rc1 axb5 22.axb5 Rc5 23.Qd2 Rc7
24.Ra1 Qe3 25.Qxe3 Bxe3 26.Ra4 Rfc8 27.Bxe5 dxe5 28.Bd3 Rd8 29.Ke2 Bb6
30.Rfa1 Rcd7 31.R4a3 Bc5 32.Rb3 Rd4 33.h3 f5 34.exf5 e4 35.Bb1 Rd2+ 36.Kf1
Rd1+ 37.Ke2 R8d2# 0–1
Tamarkin,Larry S (2084)
- Ashley,Maurice A (2520) [B06]
4-Rated Games Tonight!
(4), 13.11.2008
 Is it
bad luck or good luck to be paired with a strong grandmaster in the money
round of any tournament? For me during my long life I have not only played
many grandmasters (usually losing in some stupid way) but also hung out
with them, befriended them, and even tested them for some chess article or
whatever to try to 'get' what makes them so much better then I am.
However
in this 25/5 tourney I would much rather wind up with someone I can at least
draw at the end for the class prize. Unfortunately for me Maurice has just
started playing again (apparently just for fun as he has a very successful
career in chess that no longer requires him to play).
In the previous round
he lost to the above mentioned super-GM, so unlike most other self-respecting
GM's who will only get a 'pittance' for finishing in a tie for 2nd through
6th) he didn't withdraw, and so gets me. I guess I'm supposed to take some
pleasure in being this guy’s dinner because he's so great - but still I need
that dinner more then he does - LOL!
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.f4 a6
5.Nf3 b5!?
Its
unnecessary to stop ...b4 - I've had a lot of experience with this 'Tiger's
Modern' opening for both sides in 3-minute blitz on the ICC.
Unfortunately without Rybka-3 running in the background (I've really got to
find a way to get that little monster program implanted into my brain!) I
still manage to get a bad position in the play that follows.
6.Qe2!?
Maurice
told me that he welcomed this unusual queen move and figured he stood better
after it. I also liked this move as I felt that Maurice's
understanding of the typical Modern defense positions we were in would be
less acute if I varied from the 'automatic' 6.Bd3.
I am
trying hard to improve my game and part of the process is finding moves that
are off the beaten track without being outright bad. It's a trade-off
as the very strong players will almost always find any negative tactical
and/or strategic problem behind ones moves as soon as you leave the Theory.
The
positive point is that if the move is just unusual rather then downright bad
it will make them think a lot
harder (and even if they succeed crushing me completely, they have to 'show
their individual class', and perhaps teach me how to handle the very same
position I would get from a similarly rated opponent in future games), and
play into murky territory that perhaps even they won't handle so well in
these faster time control events - which is also one of the reasons I like
these fast sudden-death (or time-delay) events so much!
6...b4 7.Nd1= Nf6
8.Nf2 0–0 9.c4?!
Rybka 3 says this very-natural move is dubious
recommending instead, [9.a3!? bxa3 10.Rxa3 Nbd7 11.Qe3! With a slight
advantage due to white's better center and well-placed rook on a3.
Yeah I
saw the line up to 10...Nbd7 but couldn't envision the strong 11th move of
the queen - It just seemed too strange to put the queen on e3 instead of the
bishop - but of course chess analysis engines don't suffer the practical
biases that we humans do so they crank out moves like this all-the-time.
My goal is partly to train my brain to calculate and evaluate positions in
this 'unfettered' way that the programs do - unfortunately there is a lot of
unlearning for old players to do too achieve this goal.
Obviously (to my
way of thinking) this is the reason that [some] youngsters make such quick
progress in the game that makes everyone take notice of them - they never
learned all this 'general principle' crap from chess books as diverse as Reinfeld, Chernev, Capablanca,
Alekhine all the way to guys as relatively unaffected by the tyranny of
'just words' to express chess ideas as GM John Nunn! Having nothing to
'unlearn' they're still quickly growing mind can much more easily assimilate
all of the practical over-the-board knowledge with which they need to
succeed!
9...bxc3 10.bxc3 c5!
Still I was
right to consider my position still at least equal here.
11.g3
But this
turns out to be too slow a way to continue my development.
Better
was 11.Bd2!? Qb6 12.Qd3 a5 13.Rb1 Qc7 14.Qe3 and once again White untangles
successfully. Of course it would be nice to have a superior position
as White rather then one where such accuracy is required to assure equality,
but that is one of those key-components that the higher-rated players
possess in abundance compared to me. (So far.)
11...cxd4 12.cxd4 Nc6
13.Rb1
13...Ng4?!
Even GM's don't always get it exactly right! Here
13...d5! 14.e5 Ne4 15.Bd2 Bf5!
creates even more problems for White to solve then the game continuation.
14.d5?!
But this
move immediately opens the floodgates for Black's pieces - of course I was
getting into serious time-pressure here as well, so Maurice's inaccurate
13th move will not be tested.
Better
was 14.Qc4! Interesting how often another move by the queen is
required to keep White in the game! 14...Bd7 15.d5 now this move works
better. 15...Na5 16.Qd3 Qc7 17.Nxg4 Bxg4 18.Be2 Rab8 19.Kf2! and though
Black is still for choice there is no completely clear and easy way to crush
the White position.
14...Qa5+!
Of course Maurice seizes
the opportunity to win some material.
15.Bd2 Qxa2 16.Rc1 Na5!?
A
little bit provocative and I'm not 100% sure that Maurice saw White's losing
combinative choice. Doesn't matter though because his intuition told him
that his position is crushing & he is right.
Anyway a safer easier way for
Black to win might have been 16...Nxf2!? 17.Kxf2 Nd4 18.Nxd4 Bxd4+ 19.Kg2 a5
A pawn down, I'm just too tangled up here to hope to survive much longer.
The move in the game at least got the spectators excited!
17.Rxc8!?
A losing (but correct choice), as this desperate combination at least
goes down fighting, rather then something like 17.h3 Nxf2 18.Kxf2 Nb3 19.Rc7
Nxd2 20.Qxd2 Qxd2+ 21.Nxd2 Bd4+ 22.Kf3 a5–+ which would be similar to the
line suggested in the last note which is just pure agony - I think they call
this 'dying with your boots on'. -:)
17...Rfxc8 18.Nxg4 Nb3
19.e5
Nothing better anyway,
19.Ne3 Nxd2 20.Nxd2 Bc3–+
19...Nxd2 20.Nxd2
Rab8!
Bringing all the guys into the party! (Aagaard/Nunn and others).
21.Ne3 dxe5 22.fxe5 Bxe5 23.Ndc4 Qa1+ 24.Kf2 Bd4 25.Kf3 Rb3 26.Kg4!
Ah - I know from Steinitz
that this is the piece to use to start the attack! LOL
26...Bxe3 27.Nxe3 Qd4+ 28.Kf3 Qxd5+ 29.Kf2 Qxh1 30.Bg2 Qc1
0-1
Though I lost again (and with
White again) to the much stronger player I
felt that I played pretty well.
Now that my stamina is improving a little
bit the plan is too train a few more extra hours each day (instead of the
ongoing obsession with this political season, CNN, MSNBC, last season of E.R.
and other wasteful T.V. watching activities that gulp down the required
large amount of studying and training I might still be able to do even at my
advanced age (just turned 53 on November 23rd), age to really improve a bit
more - this column is my attempt to do just that.
If the readers enjoy my
pontification in these notes then that is an added plus; thanks for
looking.
- Larry S. Tamarkin
A New York Chess Player
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