Prospect v. Schaumburg (3): Too Many Pawn Moves

Pawn moves in the opening can be quite useful. They provide space for the pieces to develop and they help control the center. But excessive pawn moves create weaknesses and allow an opponent to get a lead in development. Three of Schaumburg's losses can be traced to excessive pawn moves. On 4th Board, five out of Brandon Hunt's first seven moves against Mike Zwolenik were pawn moves. On 7th Board, Ryan Wehmeier used six of his first eight moves for pawns against Mike's brother Max, and on 8th Board, Ryan Koutnik made six straight pawn moves to open the game against Mike Busby. The results were lags in development and vulnerable kings.

On 2nd Board, Schaumburg's Alexander Savoy got his pieces into the action, but his single minded attack on Andrew Berowski's king was parried by accurate defense and White ran out of ammo. On 3rd Board, Schaumburg's Ben Wu developed his pieces reasonably but overlooked a double attack on move 13 that cost him a knight after which Tejas Shah maintained control.

The most interesting game of the match was played on 1st Board between Peter Dimopoulos and Schaumburg's Craig McIlvain. Craig played the opening somewhat timidly and wound up down a pawn with an exposed king, but Peter could not find a way to open the lines he needed to open to bring his rooks to bear. Craig in turn missed the chance to exploit the open lines available to his rooks and a rook and pawn ending was reached that probably should have been drawn. However, Craig allowed Peter to trade rooks to reach a winning king and pawn ending but Peter was too eager to advance his pawn and Craig managed Schaumburg's sole win in the match.