So, as promised in my last blog, I had my first official OTB (over the board) chess match on Monday evening. It was a nostalgic return to the Auckland Chess Club. It was a place with a lot of memories of tournaments, whether it was interclub matches when I was a member of the Waitakere Chess Club or interschool and junior competitions. But unlike those times, I knew almost no-one. There was a name of a player who I recognised the name of but who would likely not remember me. Being my first day, I came early to check in and see the pairings. I sat down at Board 10 to wait and after the arbiter announced the start, my opponent still hadn't arrived. He was rated over 1800, which was higher than the rating of my youth but in line with my rapid online rating. After prompting from another player, I started his clock and gathered my thoughts. I had white so I could make my move, 1. e4.
Chess has a form of notation to describe moves, e4 corresponds to a square on the board, the letters of the alphabet "a" to "h" mark the lengthwise rows, and numbers correspond to the sideways ranks from near to far, all from the white perspective. So e4 means a move to the fifth row along. If it is a pawn move, all you need to write is the destination square and it's understood that it is a pawn move. If it were any other piece it would be given a letter, K for king, Q for Queen, B for bishop, N for knight and R for rook. I'm going to write the notation in this blog, but just for you, Dear Reader, to a have a feeling of time and motion.
After about five minutes, he came in, adjusted his pieces and played 1. ... c5, the Sicilian Defence. Chess openings and variations have a lovely array of names, often from place names or particular players who popularised them. The Sicilian is the number one way to counter 1. e4. It's asymmetric and as with the word, it's often a prelude to warfare. I did the standard Nf3, and he countered with a less common e6. That is when the strangest thing happened: in my come back, regardless of black's second move, I always played a sideline to avoid the main lines that start with d4. I had always played the Delayed Alapin, c3. But after his e6, whether it was my instinctual memory of seeing almost all Sicilians going 3. d4, or hypnosis, or maybe not realising it was the third move not the forth, my hand reached out and played d4.
3. d4 cxd4, 4. Nxd4. And with that I was now playing the Open Sicilian with no knowledge of the opening. My first game back and I'd already deviated from all my preparation without any need. The next moves were purely me aiming for a vaguely safe and equal set-up. One of the problems was that with a player with an 1800 rating, they should know the opening and the traps, what to do and what not to do, or so I had to assume.
4. ... Nf6, 5. Nc3 Bb4. And already I'd felt I was in a trap - my position was already in a dilemma about how to avoid the loss of a pawn. Later I learned that his move was actually a mistake but only with theory would I have known. And even if I saw something I would have trusted that he would know it better. So I did what I thought was adequate: 6. Qf3 (apparently this shocked my opponent) Bxc3, 7. bxc3 Qa5, 8. Bd2 a6, 9. Bd3 Nc6, 10. Nxc6 bxc6 11. 0-0 (this is how you show castling kingside) 0-0 12. Rfe1 d5 13. e5 Nd7.
And basically we've moved from the opening to the middlegame. And surprisingly I have a small edge that I could have done wonders with. . But also I've got the wrong idea stuck in my head. There is a well-known attack that begins with a bishop sacrifice on the h7 square. It's called the Greek Gift (which actually doesn't make sense because the original Greek gift at Troy was a horse!). I tried to calculate as far as I could and it looked promising, although I couldn't calculate everything, so fortune favours, the brave so...
14. Bxh7+ (a plus sign shows a check on the king) Kxh7, 15. Qxh5+ Kg8, 16. Re3 f6 - I hadn't calculated this response... which was the best defence. And that's when I started to doubt the soundness of my attack. According to the computer analysis, it is a level position - which means I had lost a bishop but had enough activity and attack for it, but nothing more. I pressed on: 17. Rh3 Nxe5, 18. Qh7+? and apparently that was a mistake. In chess books they use question marks and exclamation marks to show the quality of moves, ? indicates an mistake, ?? a blunder, ! a strong move that was hard to find, !! an amazingly strong unexpected move. And then there are a couple of permutations, !? indicates an interesting move - in retrospect, my Greek Gift was probably this, 14. Bxh7+!? because it was needless to sacrifice and led to a wild game that was equal at best.
My one big reflection is that often I'm only thinking about one obvious move when there were a couple of other possibilities here. I have to force myself to at least keep a couple of candidate moves to decide between even when the sequence seems forced. He replied 18. ... Kf7, 19. Bh6 Ke7 - apparently a slightly different move, Ke8 would have been even better but either way, he has defended well against my attack, has got an edge and now I'm worried. 20. Bxg7 Rf7, 21. Bxf6+ offering another bishop sacrifice but he cannot take it without being checkmated. He has a far better move than taking my bishop and I was praying he wouldn't do it, but he did: 21. ... Kd7.
Just then I thought my attack was over and all I could see is sacrificing my Queen. The funny thing was that it wasn't necessarily the case. Two other moves survive a bishop down with activity but again my vision tunneled and I saw some light at the end of the tunnel with a queen sac.
22. Bxe5!? Rxh7 (bye bye Queen) 23. Rxh7 Ke8, 24. g4?! I had seen this move before I sacrificed my queen and thought myself smart. But again, there were two moves that were far better. Another common realisation I have with my calculations is that I get locked into one sequence of playing, in this case g4 first and then playing Re1 later. The reason I played g4 was because I could see me checking him a lot but there was an out, I saw in my head 24. Rh8+ Kf7, 25. Rh7+ Kg6 26. Rg7+ and I thought I could check him no more after Kf5... but 27. Re1 traps him in a vice and there is an unstoppable mate with... g4, literally the move I played too early.
My opponent's great defence finally failed him though with 24. ... Qa4. There was one move that defeats my attack all together (c5) but he missed it. Then I saw my chance to draw or win. 25. Rh8+ Kf7, 25. Rh7+ Kg6 26. Rg7+ Kh6, 27. Re1! (notice how this is the key move again!) My opponent was quite shocked by this move and while there some other choices, he chose to give up his queen for my rook: 27. ... Qxc2, 28. Re3 Qc1+, 29. Kg2 Qxe3. 30. fxe3. The smoke clears and my position is smoking hot. He has very few playable moves and in desperation to break free played 30. ... a5? This is basically checkmate in 13 moves.
I used to be a very nervous player, with a visible tremble with my nerves. With the win before me I didn't tremble but I did play rashly. I completely missed the winning sequence - it wasn't superhard to spot but again I had tunnel vision and thought the win via other means was unstoppable.
31. h4? (missed win) Ba6 32. Kg3 Rf8. 33. g5+? (missed win) Kh5, 34. Rh7+ Kg6, 35. Rh6+ Kf5!, 36. Rf6+? (now only marginally winning) Rxf6, 37. gxf6? (losing all chances of winning, almost a certain draw. I had gone on this four move sequence on faulty calculation, I missed his only saving move: 37. ... Kg6, 38. h5+ Kf7 39. h6 Bd3. I was so blind that I didn't even see the last move coming - it made what I was planning no longer work. I thought it was over - a draw. Only with a computer is there still a little chance but it was beyond my ability. The rest of the moves are him avoiding blunders and the inevitable simplification into a drawing position. He comically refused my draw offer when it was impossible to go on any longer, before agreeing finally.
So it was the crazy sacrificing game where both players gave up their queens but it still ended in a draw. Although I was disappointed not to win after move 30. Overall, I deserved to lose at various points so it was a just result. I didn't have the ability to take the opportunities to win. But it's a result against a rated opponent, so now I will have a rating. Lots of learning from this game, too.
The great thing about club chess is the analysis afterwards. Someone I had small talk with, and who I later realised was the second highest rated player in the tournament, was with me and my opponent as we talked about our thoughts and calculations. I missed a lot of what they saw and vice versa. There are five more rounds to go so I look forward to improving my composure and hopefully getting a win or two.
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