Thursday, July 14, 2005

Two tournaments.

Margriet and I play in The Amsterdam Chess Tournament which starts saturday.
9 days in a row without a restday.
40 moves in 120 minutes + 30 minutes for the rest of the game (how do you abbreviate that in the US? 40/120+30 or something like that?)

Then we have one day in between, before The Open Dutch Championship 2005 Dieren starts.
9 days with 1 restday.
40 moves in 120 minutes + 60 minutes for the rest of the game.

I intend to use this post to keep you informed via updates.

Tournament

Temposchlucker
1751
Margriet
1420
ACT score4.55
ACT games played
99
NK Dieren score
00
NK Dieren games played
00
Totals
4.5/95/9



Don't be worried when the updates suddenly stop. When the results are really good or terribly bad that may happen. Or when I need to focus.
Wish us luck.

Update july 16:
I had a draw against a player with 1710. The scanmethod is workable in practice, I have not been in danger nor timetrouble. The scans change my style of playing. The chance that I get an endgame increases. So I'm going to pick that up again definitely after the tourneys.
Margriet made a calculation error against 1541. That costed her a piece and timetrouble. Which is a bad combination.

Update july 17:
I had a hefty positional struggle against 1641. We castled opposite. Resisting a draw in a better position because of timetrouble I mated him at move 40.
Margriet played against an unrated girl and had a difficult win. Even with two queens against none her opponent played thru. Hoping for stalemate, a ringing cellphone or an hartattack, I presume. Which wasn't granted.

Update july 18:
Please all give a warm welcome to Guruchess, our newest Knight.
I dub her (yes, another her) the Jovial Knight. She can use some cheering.
For those with a knowledge of Vedic astrology below all standards: Guru is a big planet, guess which one.
Today I played against a 20 yo girl with 1849.
I noticed she had difficulty in decision making. At a certain moment we had to do 17 moves before the timecontrol. I had 17 minutes at the clock, she had 31. So I offered a tactical draw. The result was as expected, she dived deep into hesitation. The position was about equal and very complex. When she had only 10 minutes left she was forced to accept.
Margriet played against a 1520 player with black and kept him under heavy pressure the whole game, untill she could trade off pieces to a better queen ending, which she cleverly managed to win. I do every day some exercises at CTS, which seems to keep me sharp.
I have had no oversights the past 3 games. Knock on wood.

Update july 19:
This morning my brain didn't seem to function at all.
So I trained for about an hour at CTS (with devastating result btw), and quite a few braincells seemed to awake.
I played with black a Portugese gambit against 1640, which my opponent declined.
We castled opposite. My pieces were more active and more vulnerable.
If I wouldn't undertake some action, my pieces would be driven back.
Since I noticed he played like a piece of wadding, I decided to sacrifice the exchange for an open line against his King. If I were him I would sacrifice immediately a bishop back, and I would be lost. But he had not the courage.
Even now things were tricky, but I thought that eternal check or eternal attack was possible in case things went wrong. But he couldn't find the best defense and I mated him at move 23.
I suspect when he runs the game thru Fritz, he will bang his head against the wall.
Margriet had again a very long game against 1532, and ended with an ending N vs B, which she couldn't hold.

Update july 20:
It becomes difficult to recuperate fully between two games. All games go about the full monty (=5 hours).
I always thought those cyclists were idiots to cycle for 1 or 2 hours on a restday in the Tour de France. But I train every morning about a wee hour at CTS. When I start with CTS I perform terrible, but the training clears the head.
Today I had a draw against 1748. I had white and he played 1. e4 Nc6.
I have only seen that once before, and I had no idea what to play.
I was terribly bungling and used half an hour more than my opponent for the opening.
In the middlegame I could take over the initiative and I had problably a winning position. But to make 40 moves in 2 hour I had to move fast, so my opponent escaped with eternal check at move 41. I was a pawn up by then.
Margriet was tired and lost against 1311 with an Icelandic gambit.

Update july 21:
In most Dutch tournaments walks a phenomenon.
This phenomenon manages to get in conflict with the arbiter or the opponent every tourney.
A new arbiter in the Netherlands is considered to be initiated only after they are sueed by this guy.
He is very strict in the rules. But not always right.
Today the chief arbiter announced by microphone "you can start to play after the stroke of the gong". Since he was in another hall, we couldn't here the gong.
So only a few guys, amongst them our phenomenon, started to play immediately.
An arbiter ran to the other hall to fetch the gong, and after a few minutes we started at the stroke of the gong.
In the mean time our phenomenon had blundered a piece away. . .
But he insisted to start the game over, because the game wasn't officially started.
His opponent was so perplex that he agreed.
Some day I will write a book about him:)

I'm still undefeated. I played with black against 1766. The queens were traded off at move 8.
He offered a draw at move 17, when the position was still closed and totally equal.
I couldn't resist to take an unofficial rest day and agreed.
Margriet was three pawns down after the opening (Alapin) against 1507.
After a few tactical tricks she got them back.
Then she lured her opponent in a discovered attack and won a rook and the game.

Update july 22:
Today I had my first defeat. I throwed the sink at my opponent from move three and he agreed that he was just plain lucky that he could escape. He was very enthousiast because he hadn't had such an exciting game with the French since long. I annotated the game here.
My head felt like a wet newspaper afterwards.
Margriet blew her opponent 1472 from the board with one trick after another.

Update july 23:
Due to an error (the tourneyleader gave me a win for yesterday) I had to play against the number two of my group (1891). I gave him a very hard time with the Fajarovicz.
But in time trouble I lost 2 pawns. I could not maintain the balance in an ending with bishops of opposite colour. A beautiful game.
Margriet posed her opponent (1497) so much problems that he couldn't do an acceptible move on move 40, so his flag fell.

Update july 24:
Today I heard myself offering a draw after a 3-hour fight. I was already in a good position by then. I don't know why I did it, it just happened. He happily agreed.
Margriet lost from a 1541 guy with a Faj(arovicz).

28 comments:

  1. Yeah, I think its 40/120 SD/30 (for sudden death).
    Good luck to both of you.

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  2. Good luck Tempo and Margriet. Take your time and win!

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  3. You're off to a good start, Tempo! Good luck for the rest of the tourney.

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  4. Cool! Keep us posted!
    Good thinking on draw offer.
    I can't wait to see these games.

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  5. I just noticed Harmen Jonkman is playing. You should try and talk to him about the King's Gambit I know that he used to play it. But I'm not sure if he still does.

    Congrats on today's success.

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  6. Happy to watch your success. Opps will be stronger then. So be careful and keep winning!

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  7. I love checking in and seeing your success. Keep up the fight. When the smoke clears in a few weeks, I'l love to see some of these games. Especially the portughese gambit win.

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  8. "Today I had a draw against 1748. I had white and he played 1. e4 Nc6.
    I have only seen that once before, and I had no idea what to play."

    I'm in the process of memorizing a game that starts out that way. This one evolves into a French Defense. The first moves are:

    1. e4 Nc6 2.d4 d5 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. e5 Ne4 6. Bd3 Bb4 7. Bd2 Nxc3 8. bxc3 Be7 9. h4 h6 10. Rh3 Na5 11. h6 c5 12. Rg3 c4 13. Bf1 Bf8 14. a4 Bd7 15. Nd2 f5 16. exf6 gxf6 17. Qg4 Qe7 18. Ba3 Qf7 19. Bxf8 Rxf8 20. Qg6 Ne7 21. Qxf7+ Kxf7 22. Nf3

    This game was a win for Black, though, so I'm not sure if there are improvements for White along the way.

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  9. excellent Tempo. especially pleased that Margariet bounced back in her game.

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  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  11. That looked like a fun game!
    The official website listed you as the winner of that last round.

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  12. SP,
    yes, I've seen that, I have sent the gameleader an E-mail to correct it. [sniff]

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  13. Nice game!

    Some positions were extremely hard to calculate so I used Fritz to evaluate some crucial positions.

    Your 19.Rxd5! was clearly best move. In fact you both played excellent chess, Fritz couldn't really find significant improvements.

    Personally I've had terrible results against French and was very pleased to find out about this gambit in the latest Gambit Cartel by Tim McGrew. I reminds a lot the gambit I use against Caro-Kann (also from the same source: "Canning the Caro").

    Good luck with the final two games.

    - bahus

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  14. Wow what a game! In an earlier Gambit Cartel Tim McGrew presented the Reti-Spielmann variation 1.e4 e6 2. b3, and I played a lot of French with it and got excellent results. Maybe I'll have a try with Alapin-Diem er, too.

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  15. Congratulations to both of you.
    Good job on your 4.5 and
    Wietske's 5.0
    I can't wait to see both of your games.
    Thanks for giving us the round reports!

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  16. I edited my previous comment for privacy purposes.

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