Prospect v. Barrington (3): Opening Moves I Hate

Two of Prospect's three victories came from the Zwolenik brothers, Mike on 5th Board against Zach Youman and Max on 8th Board against Cory Hunter. Both Zwoleniks have demonstrated potential on some occassions and sloppiness on others, but they both came up with some accurate moves in complex positions to win their games.

While I hate to pour salt in a player's wounds after a loss, I love to jump on a player's mistakes after he wins, and each of the Zwoleniks played an opening move that made me cringe. In Max's case it was putting a bishop in front of an unmoved central pawn with 4.Qd3 .

There are several reasons I hate this move: (1) blocking the d-pawn immobilizes it and stops it from exerting control of the center or performing any other useful function; (2) blocking the d-pawn makes it harder to develop the other bishop; and (3) the bishop is wasted because it is performing the function of a pawn. Not surprisingly, you will rarely see a bishop developed this way in games between strong players.

In Mike's case, the hated move was placing the queen in front of an undeveloped bishop with 5...Qe7.

The reason I hate this move is that it delays the development of the bishop and delays castling. It rarely yields benefits commensurate with the loss of development, however, there are in fact a few opening in which you will see this move played at the top level. Most of them involve situations where the opponent suffers a loss of development because he is forced to play the same move to deal with threats on the e-file. One such case occurs in the Petrov defense after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nxe5 Nxe4?! 3.Qe2. Black is now forced to play 3...Qe7 because he will lose his queen after 3...Nf6?? 4.Nd6+.

Prospect v. Barrington (2): The Anti-Sicilians

The most popular opening at the grandmaster level is the the Sicilan Defense. After 1.e4 c5, the most dynamic lines are known generally as the Open Sicilian when White plays 2.Nf3 d6 (or 2...e6 or 2..Nc6) 3.d4 cxd4, 4.Nxd4.


The Open Sicilian includes many well-known variations such as the Najdorf, the Dragon, the Classical, the Schevenginen, the Taimanov, the Paulsen, the Sveshnikov and the Kalishnakov. Chess books are filled with exciting games played in the Sicilian and many are tempted to try it out.


One big problem with playing the Sicilian Defense is that your opponent may know nothing about opening theory and he may not realize how exciting the Open Sicilian is, or he may know and decide that he is not in the mood for that kind of excitement. He may play one of many variations that are known collectively as Anti-Sicilians, including the Grand Prix Attack, the c3 Sicilian, Closed Sicilian, the Alapin, the Wing Gambit, the Morra Gambit, the Moscow, the Rossolimo. He may even play a perfectly logical move like 3.Bc4 that has no name at all. Whichever one of these White plays, it assures that Black will not get to play that exciting opening that he studied.

When I returned to competitive chess in 1996 after a twenty year hiatus since high school, I decided to play the Sicilian Defense. I started out with the Najdorf but soon switched to the Dragon. I had good results in these lines but I found that most of my opponents avoided them The most common Anti-Sicilians I encountered were the Closed Sicilian and the c3 Sicilian, although I did poorly against all the Grand Prix Attack as well, so poorly that I began to experiment with other defenses to 1.e4. Finally I figured out how to play against them and now I am actually happy to face an Anti-Sicilian. When I see one, I am pretty sure that my opponent is not going to surprise me with some devastating innovation from the latest super-GM event.

While the Anti-Sicilians are not considered the most testing lines, they cannot be taken lightly. Black can find himself in trouble if he simply follows his usual scheme of development without considering the strengths and weaknesses of White's approach. For example, when fianchettoing the bishop against several Anti-Sicilians, the Black knight is better placed on e7 rather than f6. Here is a position from the Closed Sicilian that is reached by 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 e6 6.f4 Nge7 7.Nf3 0-0 8.Be3 d6.

Since White played d3 rather than d4, the e4 pawn is secure and White can thumb his nose at a knight on f6. However, on e7 the Black knight is ready to go to c6 after ...Nd4 and it also serves to deter White from playing f5. The same formation for Black is also seen against the Grand Prix Attack.

This position is reached by 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bc4 e6 6.0-0 Nge7 7.d3 0-0. From both of the positions above Black can consider expanding on the queenside with ...a6 and ...b5 or challenging the center with ...d5.

The Importance of Exchanges

Against Barrington, Tejas Shah struggled to find counterplay on 4th Board against the closed game Luc Norman played against the Sicilian. However, the game was decided by two exchanges made by Tejas that allowed Luc to bring pieces to dominating positions. Too often, young players exchange pieces automatically. However, a capture can do great harm when the recapturing piece is much stronger than the original piece that occupied the square.

Prospect v. Barrington

Here are the rest of the games from the Prospect-Barrington match: 1st Board; 2nd Board; 3rd Board; 4th Board; 5th Board; 6th Board; 7th Board; 8th Board.

First Post

I am a volunteer coach for the Prospect High School chess team in Mount Prospect, IL. We finished 8-2 in our matches this year in the Mid-Suburban Chess League which is composed of teams from the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. It is, as far as I know, the first time Prospect has been over .500 for a very long time. I am also a reasonably active player myself, and I recently made expert for the first time.


The team's most impressive match was the upset of undefeated Barrington. The most interesting game from that match was on first board where Prospect's Mike Pozsgay had white against Barrington's Zach Kasiurak. Mike's USCF rating is around 1100, but it dates from his junior year and he has been playing much stronger this season. He had been talking all season about meeting Rishi Sethi who has been Barrington's first board for the last couple years with a rating in the 1800's. We did not know that Freshman Zach would be playing first board against us with a rating over 2000. Luckily, Mike had been unable to learn much about Rishi's opening repertoire so he had not done any specific preparation.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bc4?! I try to play a variety of lines in practice against Mike but I never tried the Kan Variation. Mike figures he can meet it in the same way that he would meet the Najdorf. 5... Qc7 6. Bb3 Nf6 7. Nc3? Bb4 8. Bd2 Bxc3 9. Bxc3 Nxe4 10. O-O !? I give Mike a lot of credit for this. He realized that he had misplayed the opening and he came up with a way to try to find some compensation for the pawns he dropped. 10... Nxc3 11. bxc3 Qxc3 12. Re1 Nc6 ?! Zach was playing pretty quickly and he whipped this out automatically, but it ends up giving White a lot of play. 12... O-O ! would have prevented the knight from gaining the outpost at d6. 13. Nf5 O-O 14. Re3 Qf6 15. Nd6 g6?! As White has no immediate threats, Black probably should have concentrated on untangling his Q-side with something like 15... b5. I suspect that Zach figured that sooner or later his superior rating and the two extra pawns would be enough. 16. Rc1 Nd4 17.c3 Nf5 18. Rf3 Qe5 19. Nc4 Qc7 20. g4!? A good practical move that keeps Black in a defensive frame of mind although it creates a lot of weaknesses. 20... Nh6 ?! Black keeps responding to White's threats without creating any of his own. 20... b5 !?would have given White something to think about. . 21. Rh3 Kg7 22. Nd6 f6 23. g5 Ng4? This was Black's chance to finally evict the pesky knight from d6. with 23... Nf7 !? 24. gxf6+ Kg8 and the White knightmust give up his outpost after which Black unravels his Q-side and exploits White's weak pawn. 24. gxf6+?! Releasing the pressure.24. Qd4 ! would have left the knight on g4 with nowhere to go. 24...Nxf6 25. Qd4 Qa5?! Still not 25... b6 ! with the idea of untangling the Q-side and challenging the White queen with ...Qc5. 26. Re1 Kg8 27. Re5 Qd8 28. Rg5 Qe7 29. Nf5?! As on move 24, White opted for a forcing move over one that would have ratcheted up the pressure. 29.Bc2 ! looks like it is winning for White.

Due to Black's snarled Q-side, White is effectively two pieces ahead. By adding the bishop to the attack, White can afford to sacrifice one of his extra pieces on g6 to expose the Black K. 29...Qg7 30. Rhg3 Kh8 31. Bxg6 h6 32.Qh4. 29... Qa3! This was the move that Mike had overlooked. At this point, both players were pretty short on time and Zach demonstrates the tactical superiority of an expert. 30. Nh6+ Kg7 31. f4 Qc1+ 32. Qd1 Qxf4 33. Rhg3? Ne4 34. Rf3? Qxg5+ 35. Kf1? Nd2+ 36. Ke1Nxf3+ 37. Ke2 Qg2+ 38. Ke3 Qg1+ 39. Ke2 Qxd1+ 40. Kxd1 0-1.

The match turned on Peter Dimopoulos's upset of Rishi on second board. After defending a cramped middle game well with the Black pieces, Peter somewhat recklessly decided to play for a win in an ending where he had a knight against Rishi's bishop with pawns on both sides of the board. After methodically punishing Peter for his optimism, Rishi made one of the most natural mistakes in the book when he assumed that his opponent would recapture his pawn after 46.fxg5+?.

As we all know, chess is not checkers and Peter played 46...Ke5! After 47.Kb4 Kd4 48.Kb3 Kd3, White cannot stop the e-pawn and Black queens first.