Tim Just Winter Open: "Guile and Treachery"

At last year's edition of the this event, I managed escape a losing position by bamboozling the 2nd highest rated nine-year-old in the country, Alexander Velikanov, when he was in time trouble. This left Zhe Quan, who was the top rated eleven-year-old when I played him in 2002, as the youngest player to beat me. Alas, my luck did not hold this year when I faced Alexander as the 7th highest ten-year-old. However, I still managed a respectable 3.5-1.5 score by drawing the 39th fifteen-year-old and beating the 18th fifteen-year-old, the 38th fourteen-year-old, and some crazy old man who was playing his first tournament in twenty-five years.

In the first round, I faced York High School sophomore Byron Chen, who I have known since he was a second grader coming to the Elmhurst Chess Club. The game was fairly even for twenty-six moves when a mistake by Byron gave me a chance to win a piece. However, I thought I saw a way to win an exchange that would have gotten the queens off the board. Since I had less than ten minutes to reach the forty move time control, I thought this the wiser course. Unfortunately, I overlooked a knight fork at the tail end of the combination which enable Byron to restore the equilibrium with bishops of opposite colors after which we agreed to a draw. Byron went on to have a great tournament at 4-1, knocking off Master Chris Nienart. He gained a stunning 80 rating points from 1878 to 1958!

In the second round, I faced fourteen-year-old Aakaash Meduri, who I have also known for years. Aakaash outplayed me thoroughly in the opening and I was expecting to pay the price for my recent lack of study, however, a couple of minor oversights enabled me to turn the game around. In the third round, I finally faced an opponent who shaved. Alan Davenport's son was playing in his first tournament in the reserve section so Alan decided to play in his first tournament in twenty-five years. He could not quite overcome the two decades of rust (which I well understand), but I suspect he will sharpen pretty quickly if he keeps at it.

Round four saw my rematch with Alexander Velikanov who played 6.Bg5 against my Najdorf Sicilian. I got the cramped but solid position that I was supposed to get but Alexander did a terrific job of keeping me tied up. My attempt to generate counterplay backfired with the loss of an exchange which my young opponent returned to reach a won king and pawn ending. Alexander's other victims in the tournament included 2209 Aleksander Stamnov and 2121 Patrick Lacey only losing in the last round to 2365 Mergen Amanov. Alexander boosted his rating from 1956 to 2013.

In the last round I faced fifteen year old expert Trevor Magness who played a system against the English Opening that I had not seen for several years ago and did not remember very well. Amazingly, the game followed book for the first twelve moves when I failed to come up with the plan endorsed by theory. Trevor grabbed the initiative but committed a tactical oversight that dropped the exchange. In the resulting queen and rook vs. queen and knight ending, Trevor had a very solid pawn structure and I had to maneuver carefully to break down his position while keeping his knight from becoming active.

The title of today's post is a reference to a statement made of me by Brad Rosen on his 64 Square Jungle blog: "Vincent demonstrates that every once in a while that age, guile, and treachery will triumph over youth, skill, and brilliance." While Brad is the father of 22nd ranked fourteen-year-old Eric. Brad and his wife Andi are supporters of chess players of all ages. At the Tim Just Winter Open, youth and brilliance came out on top more often than not with several veteran adult players finishing at the bottom of the cross-table.

The important thing is to approach the kids with the right attitude. After my loss to young Zhe Quan in 2002, one of the adults watching the game sought to comfort me by saying "These kids are too tough." In irritation, I responded "No they're not. They're tough, but they're not too tough." They may be young and energetic with more time to play and study then I have, but they still have to find the right moves over the board.