Tuesday, 4 February 2014

First Team game

It's not easy being a team captain.   Not only do you need to find 16 players for a full team, but then you have to play your own games at the same time as keeping a watchful eye on the progress of the rest of your team.   Full credit, then, to Ian Wallis for winning both his games last Sunday!

He reached the following position in his second game, against David Martinez Villena (173) of Bedfordshire (White to play):

11. Nxf7?!   Kxf7   12. f5.   Looks dangerous and the complications are immense.   However I have not done anything wrong in the preceding play so I tried to convince myself that everything would be OK.   The difficulty was finding the right path.

12. ... Rf8   13. Qg4   (13. fxe6,   13. Qh5 and 13. Rf1 were other possibilities).

13. ...Kg8   (13. ... Nxe5! was even better.   After 14. fxe6   dxe6   15. Qf4+   Kg8   16. Qxe5 was all I had seen, but now 16. ... Qh4+ wins).

14. Bh6 (one of the few moves that I did anticipate.   I also looked at 14. f6 and planned to answer this with the same game move but 14. ... d5 would have been even stronger, the point being 15. exd6   Qxf6 retains the piece).   Relatively best was 14. Bg5 when Nxe5 again saves the day. 15. fxe6   dxe6 (15. ... Nxg4   16.   e7+   d5   17.   exd8=Q   Rxd8   18.   Bxd8   dxc4 is still winning but why give up material when it is not necessary).   16.   Bxd8   Nxg4   17.   Bxc7 and the pawn deficit is a minor problem compared to the lack of development and exposed K.

14. ... Rf7.   Now the N is now longer pinned.   My opponent hadn't seen this defence.   14. ... Qe7 was also possible:   15. fxe6   dxe6   16. Bf4   h5! and e5 will fall again (17. Qg3   Nxe5   18. Bxe5   Bf2+   19. Qxf2   Rxf2   20. Kxf2   Qh4+ etc).

15. fxe6   dxe6   16. Bg5   Nxe5!   By now this should be no surprise.

17. Qg3   (17.   Bxd8   Nxg4 with two pawns to the good was my expected continuation but White didn't fancy this.   His continuation was less challenging).

17. ... Bf2+   18. Qxf2   Qxg5   19. Qd2   (19. Qe2   Nxc4 was no better).

19. ... Qh4+   20. Kd1   Nxc4.   Although White continued for another ten moves the result was no longer in doubt.     0 - 1.


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3 comments:

  1. Ian Wallis4 February 2014 at 15:05

    You forgot to mention the biggest challenge of the weekend - finding sufficient Ipswich based car drivers!
    I failed in this but thanks to Ted 'letting the train take the strain' we all arrived in time for match.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John Lambert6 February 2014 at 07:40

    How did your knight travel to e6 ?, what were the first 11 moves,Lots of knight moves, White square Bish not developed, not castled is the correct development for black or do I have to go back to school ?

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    Replies
    1. Bob Jones6 February 2014 at 09:20

      I'm sure Ian will correct me if I'm wrong, but the move order was something like this: 1. e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nf3 Nc6 5 e5 Ne4 6 Qe2 Nc5 7 Ng5 Ne6 8 f4 Bb4+ 9 c3 dxc3 10 bxc3 Bc5. That's how the knight got to e6!

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