My round two clash was the kind of encounter that I was expecting on my first round game - a match against a young Chinese Kiwi. Ethnicity does not really affect anything but the demographic shift is rather stark. Back when I left chess, there was one really strong young Chinese player. In this tournament, of the six players who won both of their first two games, five have Chinese family names. It would be interesting to study the why of this change. I do have the benefit of having a Chinese colleague with a daughter in the tournament to understand at least one of the reasons. For her parents, playing chess is a beneficial pastime for their child, like playing the piano. The daughter seems to have taken to it though - I may play her next round as we're on the same score - and she is strong enough to mean that losing to her wouldn't be a surprise. She recently returned from the Asia Youth Chess Championships in Bali.
She was not my opponent in this round but rather one of her companions on the team who went to Bali, an eleven year old girl. She was early to the board but being not even a teen facing someone almost four times as old, she did not make eye contact or any kind of communication with me until after the game. She did speak to her father in Mandarin, although her family name was likely phonetically Cantonese. Before the game I couldn't find her rating so I was a bit in the dark about her ability until much later. She was white and at the start time, we shook hands and I pressed her clock to go and she moved her queen's pawn up to squares, 1. d4. These openings tend to be more positional and mature whereas king's pawn openings are often more tactically, so d4 can be a bit unusual for young players who are often more tactically sharp. When I resumed my chess, I rethought my repertoire and started playing what it is known as the Tarrasch Defence, which I hadn't played in the past: 1. ... d4, 2. c4 e6, 3. Nc3 c5, the identifying move for the Tarrasch, which she followed with 4. e3, probably the tamest continuation, more likely leading to a slower struggle. It was also not one that I had faced much online so suddenly I had to spend a bit more time.
4. ... Nf6, 5. Nf3 Nc6, 6. cxd5 exd5, 7. Bb5, woah! Now this was when the surprise began. There is a tactic in chess called a "pin" - when you stop a piece from moving as you may lose a piece, or have your king attacked if you do, and she immediately went for the pin. The problem is that this is not usually the way to attack the Tarrasch and the first sign that she was already "playing moves". Anyway, it gave me a bit of confidence that I wasn't playing against a prodigy at least and I could trust my judgement. 7. ... Bd6, 8. 0-0 0-0. 9. a3?! a nothing move that reveals a lack of plans. This is rather common when you start in chess - you have a whole army of pieces but what do you do with them? How do you marshal them to some common end? I proceeded thematically, 9. ... Bg4, 10. h3? another nothing move, but in this case it loses a pawn by force or you let your king's protection be shattered. She decided to give up the pawn. 10. ... Bxf3, 11. Qxf3 cxd4.
12. Bxc6! ah, now this was interesting. She walked into a line which requires both of us to calculate exactly. This was another chance to appraise her as an opponent. 12. ... bxc3 13. Ba4! - the girl can calculate! She still loses a pawn but does it in a way that doesn't let her prized bishop get exchanged off. I approached this in my idiosyncratic but not terribly accurate way: 13. ... Be5?! 14. bxc3 Qa5, 15. Qd1 - I thought this was a mistake but the chess engines thought it a decent move. 15. ... b5, 16. Bb1 Bxc3 17. Rb1 Rfd8. 18. a4? b4 19. Bd2? - now with her playing a difficult position and now playing some weak moves, I was very confident; I had a winning advantage but with the problem that I was very far from the end of the game. But any reading of the previous game, should give cause for pause and rethink.
My big problem was that I had two really tempting moves, Move A, d4; and Move B, Ne4 and I spent time analysing them inaccurately. The curiously psychological thing I found after the game is that I actually played the right move, Move B, but regretted it the whole game wishing I had played Move A, which would have blown my advantage completely due to an obvious move of hers just two moves deep. It reminded me that I purchased, and am only halfway through an online course in calculation which encourages some appraisal of the salient features in any position. Most chess is about some apparent features that we get blind to in our excitement or our despair. In my first round game, I missed a very obvious saving technique for my opponent four moves deep into my calculation that was an apparent feature. I will try to take this learning into the next game.
So, I played 19. ... Ne4 to which after barely 30 seconds she replied with 20. Be1, a move I hadn't even seen in my long inaccurate calculation. I was down to 40 minutes on my clock to her 60 minutes. To be clear, I was still winning but the frustration of her move perturbed me and I started playing inaccurately with a move that could have blown half my advantage, 20. ... Qc7?! Fortunately, my frustrated move flummoxed her and she blundered "the exchange" (losing a rook for a bishop or knight, rooks usually being a much stronger piece) immediately: 21. Qf3? Bxe1, 22. Rfxe1 Nd2, 23. Qg4!, a move I thought was the worst place to put the queen but apparently the best according to the engine. 23. ... Nxb1, 24. Rxb1 a5. And there I should have it, a winning advantage again, but now I'm down below 30 minutes. and she is 50 minutes. The time control I should say, is 75 minutes for each side, with one minute extra for each move played, so as long as you can move faster than a move a minute accurately, losing on time isn't possible but if things get tricky you don't want to be left with that, and that's when it gets tricky.
25. e4!? - this was the kind of move that show that eleven or not, she's been around. It is very human attacking move, perfect when you need to force your opponent into taking his time to play accurately. It wasn't even among the top three moves of the engine yet in practical terms it opened up the last remaining play for her in the position. 25. ... dxe4, 26. Qxe4 Ra6!? - amazingly this move I cursed myself for yet is among the strongest moves in the position. It is just needlessly asking her to attack me and not doing the simple thing of defusing things. 27. Re1 and now she has a checkmate threat, 27. ... Rf8 28. Qe8!? - after her longest think, her queen hurtles right into harm's way, with impunity because she cannot be taken, and still with some tactical threats against my king. It wasn't the strongest move - there was a way to hold balance better - but it gave me a lot of worries that I must take care. There were many ways to deal with this and again like a child. Another learning point for me was that I discarded the best response, Rc6, on a two move deep analysis, which three move deep shows a huge advantage. Instead, I played with fire and went, 28. ... Rd6, 29. Re7 - the kitchen sink has relocated itself to my throat, how is it that I've allowed all her pieces to do whatever they like. Objectively, I was still winning but my king was now in a vice that I would need time to pick her little childish fingers from. The good/bad thing was her last move was effectively a draw offer if I wanted. There was what is called perpetual check or a draw by repetition possible, which wasn't what I wanted but it was good to know I could force it if things got too hot. Repetitions are also a good way to get a bit more clock time but I didn't do it in this situation.
29. ... Qc1+ 30. Kh2 Qf4+ 31. Kg1 and now our clock times were getting closer. What was happening was she was spending time on even forced moves, probably in a little bit of disappointment that this rather impressive chokehold she had attempted was not holding me down. Unlike before, I could think in her time and could play a bit more freely. Unfortunately, I missed a pretty clean win at this point: 31... Rf6? 32. f3 Qc1+, 33. Kh2 Qc3 now our clocks were level and very similarly to the previous round I analysed a sequence to pop the vice on my king and transfer to a won endgame. And just like the previous game, I missed one move that she saw as clear as day. 34. Bd5 Qc5, 35. Be4 Rxe8??, 36. Rxe8 Qf8, and I wrote Rxf8 on my scoresheet for her next move before she had made it to save a bit of time. (In chess you have to write down each move as it is played.) I thought Rxf8 was forced from the analysis in my head calculated moves three moves ago, and not from a sober look on the board. My mistake was that in my head I had not really thought about the significant difference that Be4 two moves earlier. Like a cold shower she played immediately: 37. Bxh7+!
I had blunder a pawn and the exchange with one oversight. I paid for the arrogance by having to cross out my pre-written move for her. Fortunately, unlike the last game, my advantage before the mistake was already pretty strong. I was shocked but I had an easy, clarified way to win the game: 37. ... Kxh7, 38. Rxf8 Rb6, 39. Rd8 b3, 40. Rd1 Kg6, 41. g4? - fortunately for me, she makes what would have been a moderately difficult endgame conversion easy. It might be another key learning to fight this army of very strong juniors: the endgame could be a weapon. To be clear, my endgame is not my strongest part of the game I need to work on it myself, but g4 lays it on a platter. Also, with the ease of the moves, my clock was only going up: 41. ... Kf6 42. Kg2 Ke5, 43. Kf2 b2, 44. Rb1 Kd4, 45. Ke2 Kc3, 46. Kd1 Rb4, 47. h4 Rxa4, 48. h5 Ra1, 49. Rxa1 bxa1=Q+, 50. Ke2 Qc1, 51. h6 gxh6, 52. g5 hxg5, 53. f4 gxf4, 54. Kf3 f5, 55. Kf2 Qe3+, 56. Kf1 Qd2, 57. Kg1 f3, 58. Kh1 Qg2 checkmate. She played on until checkmate. My colleague told me later this young player was "stubborn" and I think she showed herself to be that. There is no need for her to "resign" earlier, which means basically to end the game by giving up, but there was no way it was going to be drawn accidentally with so much time on the clocks. I have figured out how to put an embedded gameboard in a blog so here is the game for you to cinematically watch - just press play. I'll insert the first round game in later.
Although she is very young, I did the usual offer of going through the game together to talk about her thoughts. This is a good practice to have - you often get new perspectives as well as a lot of other players questioning your analysis. She refused saying she had to go, and it was pretty late for an 11 year old, but she hung around, possibly waiting for a friend's game to end. To be clear, she played really well. She would have destroyed an 11 year old Daniel easily and in the coming years, if she continues and perhaps discusses her loses a bit more with experienced opponents, she will become a very strong competitor.
Instead, I went through the game with one of my new friends, a strong player (also on 1.5 points who I might face next week!) so a pretty good person to talk about it with. He had also played a junior that evening, had been hot on attack, miscalculated and bailed for a draw.
So, more learning this round, although admittedly I made some of the same mistakes. I will have a stronger opponent in the next round. I may be able to see some of their games and hopefully some of their openings so I can do some minimal preparation. Game on!
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