Round 4: Primates triumph over Team “4HoursLife” 3 - 1

We had a very nice, solid performance in Round 4. Bob earned a really nice win as Black when his opponent rashly sacrificed a bishop for a truly speculative attack. To Bob’s credit, he calmly accepted the piece, then proceeded to negate White’s counterplay and converted the full-point. On the complete opposite side of the chess spectrum, Tom’s game was a truly scary affair, with Tom as Black defending v the English attack in a Schevenigen-type position. It boiled down a race to mate the other guy, and Tom was just one move quicker than his opponent. I gotta tell you, Tom has had some fantastic results lately – even the game he lost to a much higher rated opponent in Round 3 was very interesting. Trond had the unfortunate luck to face an opponent 200 point higher rated than him. I haven’t looked closely at the game yet, but watched the tail end of it. So going into my game, we were up 2-1 and only needed to draw to win the match – and I used that fact to great advantage. We went into an interesting Tarrasch --and I don’t play 1.d4, but I am getting more and more Queen Pawn’s Openings -- then got into what I thought was a pretty even position where I offered my opponent the opportunity for draw by repetition or possibly go astray. He of course could not accept the draw as his team would lose, so he bravely opted to try and mix it up. Unfortunately for him, it left him dangerously unguarded on the kingside and I managed to convert with an interesting attack. So we won 3 – 1.

So now we have played four of the six rounds and it cannot be said that our division in Tournament 43 even remotely resembles our division in T42. Not even close. In the last tournament, all four teams were tightly packed; any team theoretically would or could capture the #1 slot and advance to the playoffs. You could never predict how each round would end up, we were that closely matched. In fact the division winner was not determined until the last 2 games of the division were played. Tournament 43 is just the opposite. Team “Zwishenzugs” remain undefeated at 4 – 0 heading into the penultimate round. We trail them by a full point and half but are solidly in second place. For us to capture the division, we must beat them this round, then beat our last round opponents AND have Team “Zwishenzugs” lose or draw. A tall order, if you ask me. I think our best chance rests with capturing one of the wildcard slots.

One note: The Game of the Week for Round 2 has not been determined (yet). We patiently await whether Tom’s game is selected. Also, someone (not from our team either) nominated Tom’s win from this round for GOTW. Very nice!

Primates lose 1 – 3 to “Team Zwishenzugs”

Out top three boards all went down in flames as we faced the #1 team in our division, “Team Zwishenzugs”, with Bob earning the sole victory on Board 4. I felt especially badly for Trond, who had a fantastic game and looked like he was on course to win his first game after an extended layoff, when he went astray. Tom also had a great game early on, only to succumb to the greatest of endgame dangers – connected passed pawns. The game is worth looking at as it provides an interesting study of unbalanced material (in this case Tom had 2 rooks + 3 minor pieces v Queen + Rook + minor piece). The computer loved Tom’s position for a long time, but I felt it was one of those positions where it would coordination of his pieces could prove to be problematic.

Couple notes:
- Curt rightly nominated Tom’s smashing win in Round 2 for Game of the Week. We are still awaiting final determination, but I truthfully cannot see any other game earning the accolades (biased or not).

- I was cruising through various stuff on ICC Sunday night and noticed that Darren still has not logged in since September. Nor has he responded to previous emails. I hope all is well. If anyone has any info, please feel free to drop me a note or comment. Thanks.

Round 2 Wrap up: Primates tie with Team “4hourlifes”

I would argue that Tom’s spectacular win which earned us the 2 – 2 tie made up for the other three rather less than spectacular results from myself, Trond and Curt. Curt and I both had great positions, almost crushing positions, and we both were unable to translate to a win due to overlooking ONE MOVE. In fact, my game went from crushing to me having to hang on and draw a pawn down Rook+Pawn endgame. Meanwhile Curt made his poor opponent suffer for as long as he could, but could not crack the position open and convert. Trond, though, suffered from a tactical blindspot in a completely even game and suffered the loss for it.

So going into Tom’s game, we were trailing by half a point and needed him to win just to draw. Unlucky for his opponent, Tom was in top form and completely dominated the game. Here it is:

http://team4545league.org/pgnplayer/pgnplayer.php?ID=33266

After 2 rounds we are securely in 2nd place, just half a point off the lead. We square off against the #1 team, team “Zwishenzugs” in our division in Round 3. I am taking the week off, so good luck to all!

T 43 Round 1: Primates 3 - Team Capablanca 1

Tournament 43 has arrived and the Primates have returned more or less intact. Trond has returned after taking the summer off and visiting Norway (welcome back, Trond!), and Darren has not been heard from nor signed up for T43. I hope all is well and we hear from him soon. Other than that, Tom, Curt, “The Other Bob” & I are all “tan, ready and rested” for T43 with Round 1 commencing this weekend.
We are in the Maple Division and face “Team Capablanca” in Round 1. The other teams included in our division include: “Zwishenzugs”, whom we have never faced and team “4hourslife” against whom we have squared off in a previous tournament. The Division looks to be pretty tough as 2 teams have an average above 1990 (max average is 2000), and we have an average at around 1980.

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Round 1 Wrap up: Primates 3 - Team Capablanca 1

Speed kills. That should be the theme for the last game in our match, which pitted Tom v Bgolev. What an unlikely result, but not in the way you would think. We were leading 2 - 1 going into the last game. Tom had Black v Bgolev and they played a g3 variation of the King's Indian in the most Karpovian style (which I always hated and one of the reasons I never played the King's Indian - that whole variation is such a. well. it should be banned along with the Petrov). Tom got a great position, but then he went off the rails and dropped a piece. Should have been game over at that point, but his opponent went deep into time trouble and gifted the piece back. The seesaw battle continued until Tom pinned Bgolev's queen with a rook and it was game over. Wow.

So we head into Round 2 tied for first, which really isn't notable except for the fact that historically we are slow starters and tend to pick up speed as the tournament progresses. Perhaps this is a good sign for T43. For Round 2 we are paired against "Team 4hourslife", whom we have faced in T41. This will be the first game back for Trond after taking the summer off. Welcome back , Trond, and good luck!

Playoff Semi-finals: Primates lose to Discovered Mates

We square off against the Discovered Mates and for me I play against Andres Hortillosa, an expert from Minnesota.

As stated in prior entries, one of the best benefits to the 45 45 league is that it provides you incentive to study/prepare for specific games. For example, if you know your opponent plays a certain line in the Dragon, you can really prep for the game, which will (hopefully) translate over into stronger OTB play. In this match, I knew Andres plays the mainline Ruy. Now let me digress for a second: I am fascinated by the Ruy from both sides (same with the King’s Indian). I find the richness and variety that these defenses produce truly intriguing and can spend hours poring over games and analysis – which I cannot say the same about other defenses (Petrov’s & Queen’s Indian for example). So, when I saw that Andres would go for the Ruy, I leapt at the chance to play it. And the game was memorable, but not the way you would think. We delved 19 odd moves into theory, got into a very interesting middlegame with chances for both sides, and then he tragically “mouse-slipped” his queen (meaning he had a mouse slip and placed his queen accidently where he would lose it for no compensation) and resigned. Really not the way I wanted to win.

Our 2 lower boards have both lost, Darren in an interesting Scandinavian where his opponent’s 2 bishops proved to be stronger than Darren’s Bishop+Knight combination. Curt also lost in another interesting Ruy Lopez, this Ruy being a Marshall attack, where Curt could have sacrificed his queen for incredible winning chances (but in fairness to him, I never would have seen it either – only after having Fritz look at it did I see the idea). So we sit at 1 – 2 with Tom’s game tonight. So in fact we may draw, but I have to check the tiebreak situation.

Well Tom played his game and could not quite pull off the victory. His opponent, knowing that Tom needed to win, played the Berlin variation of the Ruy. Tom responded with the Worrall Attack, sacrificed the exchange, picked up a pawn and was threatening to grab another when he hung a piece. I suspect Tom was overpressing as he had declined his opponent’s earlier draw offer. So another season closes with our defeat in the quarterfinals. Not bad as we had to claw out of the cellar after the first 2 rounds in the tournament in order to qualify for the playoffs. I have 3 goals for every tournament:
No forfeits
Make the playoffs
Most importantly: Have fun & enjoy the camaraderie of team match play.
We achieved all three goals and I am already planning for Tournament 43, which will start in about a month’s time.

Quarter-finals Round up: Primates 3.5 – Runners 0.5

Playoff Quarter-finals: Primates v Runners U2000

It figures. If we are playing in the 4545 League, we at some point should play the Runners (I believe we have played them a total of 5 times in three tournaments). Pairings will be up on Tuesday, but I suspect that I will face “Chiiwen” again, against whom I have never won (but most if not all the games have ended in draws).

So, you may ask, how did things go?
Everything seemed to go right for us in this round; I am not sure whether that bodes well for the rest of the playoffs --- or not. I played arguably my best round in T42 against an old time nemesis (that is meant in a friendly, jocular sort of way), Chiiwen, We have played 3 times prior and I have yet to notch a win against him (2 draws and 1 loss). In fact the 2 draws were both with me as white and I could not dent his super solid Accelerated Dragon setup. So, knowing that we more than likely would play another Accelerated Dragon AND I would need to push for the win, I spent some extra time coming up with a sharper line to play against it. It seemed to catch him by surprise and I came away victorious in a very tense struggle. Once my game was over, Tom quickly followed suit with a win, then Darren’s opponent forfeited the game, sealing the match victory. In a somewhat ant-climatic finish, Curt and his opponent agreed to a draw before the game started but couldn’t figure how to work out the mechanics to do a “GM draw”, so they played one move and then agreed to split the point.

Round 6: Primates beat Kingfischers57 & make the Playoffs

You could almost say Primates “backed” into the playoffs. This division has been incredibly tough every round, and the top three teams have had the same score (or within a half point of each other) since the first round. Even the fourth ranked team, XXXXX, won as many games as the second placed team. Little wonder then that the Primates would have to win the round to assure qualifying for the playoffs. If the Primates drew our final match, then we would require some assistance in the form of the other match drawing 2 – 2 in order to qualify based on better tiebreaks. I started off first, playing the black side of the Ruy Lopez Worrall attack against Eurander. Unfortunately for Eurander (and fortunately for me), I had anticipated the line we would play and I had also played a game that went down an analogous position. As a draw was my initial goal, I was never in real trouble and even took a draw being a pawn up. In retrospect I should have pushed for the win, however, the last thing I wanted to do was blow the position, lose the game and put my team in a hole – especially given the fact that Eurander, rated at 2250, was a solid 200 points higher rated than me.
But then things got ugly as Tom had game #2 and lost against another 2200 rated player, putting us in a 0.5 – 1.5 hole and requiring Darren and The Other Bob to win both their games. Darren was the first to play, winning in convincing style and leaving it up to the Other Bob in the finale, which he did in a tense battle.