2018-05-26

Surprise first place finish in the USCF Online rated ICC tournament. (Two weeks in a row.)

Surprise first place finish in the USCF Online rated ICC tournament.  I didn't expect to get first because "Tthius" who was tied with me for first beat the guy who beat me, which was "tigeriz."   However, I won the tournament on tie breaks.

Anyhow, in the following game I felt like I played in a sophisticated manner against an "Over The Board" 2100+ player.  I hope that computer analysis doesn't poke holes in the game, although it probably will.   At one point I offered to give up two rooks for a queen because I thought that I could control some important squares afterwards.  My opponent didn't go for it, but offered to trade major pieces.  Afterwards my plan was to restrict his minor pieces as much as possible.  Eventually he won a piece at the expense of a couple of pawns, but this was apparently a mistake because my extra pawns overwhelmed his king.

The bottom line is that I had a plan, and be it good or bad it worked.  Few of us can have a perfect plan, especially at these rapid time controls, so it is important just to have a plan period.


>uscf 
>   4.0 john2001plus Ethius
>   3.5 tigeriz IAlwaysWin
>   3.0 KingsBishop RightHandRook OnseySeyon
>   2.5 TheBlackVeil aslan777 rjp1888
>   2.0 GTG Remingtown wizard realityczech
>   1.5 ROWLAND BIRDSMAN
>   1.0 kaps-ak chess4aditya Zephyr
>   0.5 RM3
>    __________  __  ______  _   __________  __   ____ _    ____________
>   /_  __/ __ \/ / / / __ \/ | / / ____/\ \/ /  / __ \ |  / / ____/ __ \
>    / / / / / / / / / /_/ /  |/ / __/    \  /  / / / / | / / __/ / /_/ /
>   / / / /_/ / /_/ / _  _/ /|  / /___    / /  / /_/ /| |/ / /___/ _  _/ 
>  /_/  \____/\____/_/ |_/_/ |_/_____/   /_/   \____/ |___/_____/_/ |_|
>    Congratulations john2001plus and Thanks to all :-)




On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 6:54 PM, ICC [john2001plus] <icc@chessclub.com> wrote:
[Event "ICC tourney 1444 (12 3)"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2018.05.26"]
[Round "4"]
[White "IAlwaysWin"]
[Black "john2001plus"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ICCResult "White forfeits on time"]
[WhiteElo "1624"]
[BlackElo "1773"]
[Opening "Queen's Indian: 4.g3"]
[ECO "E15"]
[NIC "QI.02"]
[Time "18:25:19"]
[TimeControl "720+3"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb4+ 5. Bd2 Bxd2+ 6. Qxd2 O-O 7. Bg2 Bb7
8. Nc3 d5 9. Ne5 Ne4 10. Nxe4 dxe4 11. Ng4 f5 12. Ne3 Nd7 13. O-O Nf6 14.
Nc2 c5 15. Rfd1 Rc8 16. b3 Qe7 17. dxc5 Qxc5 18. Qd6 Rfd8 19. Qxc5 bxc5 20.
Kf1 Ng4 21. h3 Ne5 22. Ke1 g5 23. Rxd8+ Rxd8 24. Rd1 Rxd1+ 25. Kxd1 Kf7 26.
Kd2 f4 27. gxf4 gxf4 28. e3 Nd3 29. exf4 Nxf2 30. Ne3 Kf6 31. Kc3 Nd3 32. a3
Nxf4 33. b4 Ke5 34. bxc5 Bc6 35. Bf1 h5 36. Nc2 a5 37. Ne3 Kf6 38. Nc2 e5
39. Ne3 Kg5 40. Kd2 Kh4 41. Nf5+ Kg5 42. Ne7 Bd7 43. c6 Be6 44. c7 Nxh3 45.
Bxh3 Bxh3 46. c8=Q Bxc8 47. Nxc8 h4 48. Ke3 h3 49. Kf2 e3+
{White forfeits on time}
0-1





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2018-05-15

Black to play and win.

I'm not sure how many people would appreciate the subtlety of this position.  This is from an online game where I got a draw, but analysis shows that Black can slowly make progress until he wins.  It is not possible for me to explore every possible continuation, but I show a couple of lines where Black slowly improves his position until White collapses.  It is actually not that difficult, but hard to figure out in a rapid time control.