Staying at 2000 (3) or Getting to 2200

With a three wins, one loss, and a half-point bye at the UW Winter Open in Madison, I managed to increase my expert rating by four points to 2014. In the first two rounds, I met the father-son tag team of Stephen and Chris Holm. I managed to beat both of them, but I did not feel like I was in command for much of either game despite their 1417 and 1685 ratings. After a third round bye for dinner with my son, I met my old friend Chris Baumgartner and I managed to confuse him into missing a knight fork that cost him his queen. When I played here in September, the highest rated nine year old in the country, Brian Luo, and I both went into the last round with 3 1/2 points and he got the honor of playing master Alex Betanelli. This time, Brian was fortunate to escape with a draw in the fourth round against Ivan (Getting to 2000) Wijetunge. This left me as the highest rated player with 3 1/2 points, giving me the honor of being thumped by the master in the last round.

Alex was very gracious in the post-mortem, and his comments helped me see how far I have to go to get to the next level. After Alex's 11th move, we reached the following "Hedgehog" position.



I was pretty sure that I would have a very solid position if I could get ...a6 in, but I could not figure out how to do it because White is threatening e5. I saw 11...a6 12.e5 dxe5 13.fxe5 Nxe5 14.Qxe5 Bc5 15. Be3? Nf4, but I did not see anything I could do against 15. Nce2. After the game, Alex showed me the zwischenzug, 14...Bd6!, when the White queen lacks a good square. After 15.Qe3 Bc5 16.Nce2 e5 17.Qxe5 Re8, White is not going to be able to maintain the extra material. If I ever hope to make master, I am going to have to learn how to find moves like that ...Bd6. I played 11...Nc5 and went on to lose Betanelli v. Hart.

Staying at 2000 (2)

Now that Prospect's season is over, it is time to put my Expert rating on the line again at the UW Winter Open in Madison Wisconsin. Nice long time controls, a $20 entry fee, opponents that I have not played before, and a visit with my son: who could ask for more?

State (2) Player Improvement

Moves like 30.Bc6! make me look forward to next year. With this five-move combination in Shah v. Lieberman, Tejas saved Prospect from being shut out by Evanston in the second round. After 30...Rxc6 31.Rxg7 Nxg7 32.Bxg7+ Qxg7 33.Rxg7 Kxg7 34.Qg2+! picked up the rook on c6 and went on to win.



Compare this to Tejas's 30...Be3?! from Popovic v. Shah in Prospect's second match of the year.

31.fxe3?? Rf1# is a cute two-mover, but so obvious that a player cannot reasonably expect his opponent to fall for it. After 31.Nc4 Bc5 32. Nxa5, White had two connected passed pawns and won without a great deal of trouble.

State Tournament (1)--Disappointing Finish

I drove down to Peoria yesterday to watch the second day of the IHSA State Chess Tournament. Prospect finished 4-3, beating Romeoville, York, Glenbard West, and Richards, while losing a close match to Nequa Valley and getting shellacked by Evanston and Hinsdale Central. It is not a terrible result, but after going 8-2 in the regular season, I thought we might have been able to join Barrington and Palatine at 5-2 . Rolling Meadows, Fremd, and Hoffman Estates also finished 4-3. Buffalo Grove, Conant, and Schaumburg finished 3-4. Elk Grove went 2-5.

The individual board results were slightly disappointing as well. After impressive results in both the regular season and MSL tournament, I had hoped that either Tejas Shah or Parth Patel might break through for a board prize. Neither was able to do so, although Tejas did save the team from getting blanked by Evanston. The MSL did alright though with Zach Kasiurak 6-1 on 1st Board, Rishi Sethi 7-0 on 2nd, Ani Katre 6.5-.5 on 3rd, Mike Yang 6.5-.5 on 6th, and Chuck Novak 6.5-.5.

I hope to take a good look at Prospect's games over the next couple months to get a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses, although I already have a few ideas:

(1) Prospect players need to develop more determination when playing bad positions. It seems that after a blunder, they resign themselves to a loss and go down without spending much time on their moves. In the 6th round loss to Nequa Valley, it seemed like the four games we lost were over in fifteen to thirty minutes while the Nequa Valley players made us fight for an hour and a half for the points we got. There are certainly times when the loss of a piece causes a player's position to collapse completely, however, there are just as many times when the position contains defensive resources if the player work to find them.

(2) The players definitely need work on their endgame skills. Part of their lack of gumption in bad positions may simply be the fact that they are not familiar with the kinds of places that draws can be found, so they have trouble coming up with any plan when they are behind.

(3) Some of the players have just enough opening knowledge to get themselves in trouble. There were several games where someone thought they knew the opening that was being played when in fact it was a different variation that presented different problems. Rather than working to figure out those problems, they played the moves they thought they knew and wound up in trouble.

There were certainly some encouraging signs and it was a good season overall. If the players are willing to put in some effort and I can figure out how to communicate things to them, I think next year can be even better.

MSL (4) Playing the Two Knights Defense

I was a bit surprised at first by how frequently the Two Knights Defense occurs in Mid Suburban League games. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 is a pretty natural sequence of moves to play, but it can lead to some really wild tactical variations that higher rated players are reluctant to explore without a great deal of preparation. The Two Knights tends to be more popular with correspondence chess players who have more time to work out the various permutations than over-the-board players do.

The classic response to the Two Knights Defense is 4.Ng5 when the only way for Black to preserve his f-pawn is with 4...d5. After White plays 5.exd5, things get tricky. If Black continues with the natural looking 5...Nxd5, White can throw caution to the wind with the famous "Fried Liver Attack," 6.Nxf7!? Kxf7 7.Qf3+ Ke6. Black winds up with his king in the middle of the board and White winds up with a substantial material deficit. 6.d4 is considered to be a better move for White. After 6...Be7, White continues in Fried Liver style with 7.Nxf7 with the added advantage that his other bishop is ready to jump into the action. As Black encounters so many difficulties after 5...Nxd5, opening theory recommends the unnatural looking move 5...Na5 which may be followed by 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6, when White can play 8.Be2 or 8.Qf3.

If Black prefers to be the one to sacrifice all his pieces in a wild attack on his on opponent’s king he may be attracted by the move 4…Bc5 which is known as Wilkes-Barre Variation or the Traxler Attack. If White goes for the knight fork with 5.Nxf7, Black tries to bring the White king into the open with 5...Bxf2+. As GM Nick DeFirmian says in Modern Chess Openings, "These lines are for the adventurous."

I usually recommend 3...Bc5 leading to the Giuoco Piano rather than the Two Knights. 4. Ng5 is not an option for White as the Black queen covers g5, and Black can proceed with ...Nf6 and ...0-0 in a more usual fashion. It just seems to me that there are lots of points in the Two Knights where a strange looking move like 5...Na5 is considered correct while a natural looking move like 5...Nxd5 leads to trouble. There is nothing wrong with an opening like that (in fact, such openings are great for the player who knows the strange moves while his opponent plays the natural looking ones). However, it is hard to play the Two Knights without a fair amount of book knowledge, and young players who have a limited amount of time to devote to chess study could probably use it more profitably elsewhere.

Besides the need for book learning, it takes an instinct (and nerve) for wild attacks as well as an indifference to material deficits in order to play some of the crazier variations of the Two Knights well. After losing on the White side of the Wilkes-Barre Variation against Barrington back in November, Prospect’s Parth Patel decided to venture it as Black in the second round of the MSL Tournament. Although Parth managed to win the game (as he managed to win 80% of his games this year), he definitely came out on the wrong side of the opening. A look at the conservative manner in which he played the opening in his first round game leads me to believe that the Wilkes Barre may not be for him.