Prospect v. Fremd: The Season Begins

On September 28, Prospect opened its season against 2007 MSL Conference Tournament Champion Fremd. Fremd graduated seven of the players it took to the state tournament last year while Prospect returned seven players so Prospect's 6-2 victory was not unsurprising. Nevertheless, few of the victories came easily and I will need to keep the aspirin (or bourbon) handy. My comments on the games can be viewed by clicking on the links.

On 1st Board, Andrew Berowski played the Black side of the Slav passively and wound up with a cramped position. However, Adam Cheng was unable to find a way to capitalize on his space advantage and Andrew handled the ending very well thereby gaining revenge for a loss to Adam at last year's MSL Tournament. On 2nd Board, Fremd's Sarah Harasimowicz wound up with the passive position after playing a line that National Master Dan Heisman describes as one of The Most Common Opening Inaccuracies. Prospect's Peter Dimopoulos was able to capitalize based in part on his experience playing the same line against Andrew in practice.

On 3rd Board, Fremd's Rohika Wagner played a closed system against Tejas Shah's Sicilian and seemed to lull him to sleep with all the pieces still on the board after an hour and twenty minutes and sixteen moves. After another seven moves, Tejas was mated. On 4th Board, Mike Zwolenik beat Fremd's Mihir Awati.

On 5th Board, Kevin Kostka played the King's Gambit against Fremd's Meyo Ramu. Kevin's aggression was rewarded when Meyo went wrong in a position where both player's king's were under pressure. On 6th Board, Parth Patel got away with a reckless attack when Fremd's Greg Bryant's failed to make use of a file that Parth obligingly opened against his own king.

On 7th Board, Dhruvin Talati spotted several nice tactics to beat Fremd's James Cheng. Drhuvin played at a slightly less frantic pace than last year but still managed to complete fifty moves in fifteen minutes. On 8th Board Maksimillion Zwolenik's first time jitters were exploited by Fremd's Chir Norys. Unfortunately, I could not follow the game score well enough to make any comments.

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.

MSL (3)--Playing the Sicilian

The Sicilian Defense has been at the cutting edge of opening theory at the top levels of grandmaster play for at least the last fifty years. The Najdorf variation of the Sicilian has been called the Cadillac of chess openings and World Champions Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov played it religously. The most dangerous approach for White these days against the Najdorf among the chess elite is a variation known as the English Attack.

Many chess teachers would advise younger players to avoid the Najdorf variation with its myriad complexities. Some would even advise more advanced players like me to avoid it unless we are willing to put in the time and effort to keep up with all the latest nuances from the latest grandmaster tournaments. I have certainly suffered some painful defeats at the hands of an opponent who was well versed in the latest wrinkles. On the other hand, I have also achieved my biggest successes with the Najdorf such as beating Chikwere Onyekwere (the Champion of Nigeria with a rating of 2273) at the US Open last summer. The fact of the matter is that it's fun to play the openings the pros play and fun is what we are in it for.

In the second round of the MSL Tournament, Prospect's first board Peter Dimopoulos lost the Black side of a Najdorf to an English Attack played by Fremd's Diana Yen. In this variation, the players usually castle on opposite sides of the board and launch their pawns at each others' kings with the hope of producing an early checkmate. Black is often faced with a choice between trying to slow down White's attack or ignoring it and trying to get their first with his own. Sometimes it is hard to do both, as Peter learned. Yen v Dimopoulos.

MSL (2)--Sometimes a Draw is a Good Thing

It often takes newcomers some time to wrap their minds around the concept that a game of chess can end in a tie. Once they start playing competitively, it often takes even longer to grasp the idea that playing for a draw is the right thing to do in certain situations. This insight usually comes first in games where the player finds himself in such a bad position that his only chance for survival is by making it as hard as possible for his opponent to win. However, it takes a little more experience to recognize another type of situation in which a draw is a proper goal. I am not talking about a player who (wimpily) decides before the first move that a draw is the best he can hope for because his opponent's rating is so high. Rather, I am talking about positions that are evenly balanced in such a way that it is impossible to upset the balance without taking unreasonable risks.

Prospect's second board at the MSL tournament, Andrew Berowski, showed himself to be quick study in these risk-reward calculations. In the second round, he took unreasonable risks in playing for a win against Fremd's Adam Cheng and wound up losing. In the third round, he agreed to a draw with Hoffman Estate's Amy Gill in a position where there was still a fair amount of lumber on the board, but there was no constructive plan available that did not entail substantial risk. Both positions involved bishops of opposite colors (meaning each side has only one bishop that moves on the opposite color square from his opponent's).

In round two, it was Andrew's turn to move with the White pieces in the following position.

Andrew is already down a pawn and he can do nothing to defend his pawn on g5. On the other hand, Black cannot capture that pawn without losing his own pawn on e5. White might consider trying to maneuver his bishop over to g8 where it could attack Black's h-pawn, but it would be hard to get past the Black king and the bishop could wind up trapped in the corner. White simply does not have a reasonable way to play for a win.

Black, on the other hand, does have an extra pawn and grabbing White's g-pawn at the cost of his e-pawn would give him an unopposed or "passed" pawn on the h-file. However, in order to advance, this pawn is going to have to cross some light squares, such as h3 which White's bishop can control from c8. Moreover, if White can trade his f-pawn for Black's g-pawn, the bishop can also control the Black pawn's queening square. Black would need to bring his king up to support the h-pawn, but as long as the White king maintains a defensive position, Black will be unable to do so.

Endings with kings, pawns, and bishops of opposite colors are notoriously drawish. Often, a two pawn advantage is not enough to win if the defender's king is active and his bishop is placed where it can both defend its own pawns and block the opponent's. A player trying to hold on in an inferior position should always consider the possibility of trading down to such an ending. HOWEVER, if there are rooks or queens on the board, the player with the better position can sometimes attack on the squares that his opponent's bishop do not cover, so a player who is looking for a draw must be careful when trying to reach the ending.

In the above position, however, Andrew's instincts were to try to win and he was attracted by the prospect of grabbing Black's a-pawn and c-pawn. Being an optimistic soul, Andrew played for a win with 39.Kc5 and ended up losing when Black queened his h-pawn before White could get either of his pawns to the goal line. Berowski v. Cheng.

After contemplating the perils of unseemly aggression over the lunch break, Andrew reached the following position as White in the third round against Amy Gill of Hoffman Estates and a draw was agreed after White's next move.

It may look there are still a lot of pieces on the board, but after the rooks are traded, it is very difficult to come up with a constructive plan for White. Black's bishop is protected by a pawn and is perfectly positioned to protect its own pawns while blocking White's from advancing. On the kingside, Andrew's only active possibility would be advancing his pawns to pry open Amy's kingside, but White's king would be exposed before the pawns got far enough to make life uncomfortable for Black. So for White, a draw is a good outcome.

Black, on the other hand, had more reason to play on. White's bishop does not protect his queenside pawns from a protected square as neatly as White's does. Black would probably be justified in probing about with her queen a bit before agreeing to a draw, although White should be able to prevent anything too bad from happening. On the other hand, Black may have been reluctant to leave her king alone with White's queen lurking about. Berowski v. Gill.

It is not always easy to tell whether playing for a win is fraught with such peril that maintaining the balance is the best course. A player who agrees to a draw never knows what might have happened, while the one who loses by playing on learns a valuable lesson. Nevertheless, the mature chess player always considers how his opponent might respond to whatever plan he chooses. When he determines that any winning attempt will allow his opponent even greater chances to win, he plays to maintain the balance and accepts a draw as the best outcome.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I may not be the best person to give advice on this topic. I often play several tournaments in a row without a single draw, which I think is pretty unusual for players at my level. I think I let my curiosity about what might happen get the best of me. Nevertheless, when I reach a position where I clearly cannot see a way to make progress without allowing my opponent the better chances, I have no qualms about playing for a draw.