On this occasion I played in the combined U160 section. It is worth bearing in mind that the English Chess Federation added approximately 30 points to most players ratings in the intervening time, so the jump in opponent level is not as great as it may otherwise appear, but it would be fair to say that the opposition was a lot tougher this time - no longer were they willing to hang whole pieces, and the games were quite a lot higher quality.
It was a fun weekend, and over all I'm fairly pleased with my play. However for all that I definately played far too passively in my 2 openings as black, and was somewhat fortunate to score 3/5 with 2 wins 2 draws and 1 loss. Notable participants in the U160 section included a 9 year old with an estimated rating of 120, a player from a junior team in their mid teens (estimated rating of 135, but they seemed stronger to me - and I'm not only saying that because I lost to them), and my dad (who I never got to play, for better or worse).
Since the weekend I've looked through the games with Rybka, and also analysed them for a couple of hours with FM Diego Mussanti (ICC 'clalauquen').
Round 1: Sam vs Stanely S. (128) 1/2 - 1/2
My round 1 game was against Stanely S., a middle aged gentleman. I played 1.Nf3, my opening of choice for white this tournament (I've been coming to think that I actually don't really understand the positions that arise from my usual English opening all that well), and the early play was pretty quiet.
The position above is after 12...Re8, and white needs to come up with a plan. I chose to play to prevent the Bb4 pin and to trade off blacks' only active piece (the light square bishop), before consolidating my knight in the centre with 17.f4.
I felt the position (shown above) favoured me somewhat, and this impression continued for much of the game. With 22...b5 my opponent offered a draw.
Here, perhaps slightly distracted by the draw offer, I overlooked the interesting in-between move 23.Nc6, and then noticed it immediately after I had played my move (23.Nc3). With later analysis it turns out that 23.Nc6 is certainly not all good - Rybka slightly prefers 23.Nc3 (e.g. 23.Nc6 ...Qe8 24. Nxe7+ Qxe7 25.Nc3 ...Qc5, with ...d5-d4 ideas to follow), however during the game I felt I had blundered quite badly so I walked away from the board and into a different room for a few minutes to gather myself.
Play continued leaving me with a good knight vs his bad knight, helped mainly by me having a c5 outpost, with my d3 pawn doing a fine job controlling c4 and e4.
Ultimately however I was unable to convert the position to a win. The black position is quite solid and white has no entry points for his king. My attempts to open up the kingside failed, leading to a somewhat disappointing draw.
Round 2: Andrew F. (146) vs Sam 1/2 - 1/2
My round 2 game was against my highest rated opponent for the tournament, playing as black against the entirely unexpected 1.Nc3. I had no experience playing against 1.Nc3 and played 1...Nf6 - not itself a bad move but soon taking me into unexplored and dangerous looking territory. I should instead have played 1...d5 and adpoted a typical defensive structure.
The (ugly) position above came after 10.Be3. Here my development seems passive and difficult to manage with my space disadvantage. 10...Nd7 is obviously unfortunate, while I was concerned that 10...Nxd3 would give white a clear plan after 11.cxd3, giving play down the half open c file against the weak c7 pawn. I chose 11...b6, a move I'm sure I would not have even considered when a beginner. The idea is that if Bxc5 then ...bxc5 and black has compensation in the half open b file and due to white having given up his excellent dark square bishop.
White did not capture, and the position became very complicated and double edged. Fortunately my opponent blundered in letting me trade off a knight for his dark square bishop, however in the position below (after 20.Bc4) I still felt worse.
I noticed however that my opponent looked unhappy with his position, and having felt that this game had been a close encounter with disaster and still feeling worse (in addition to my opponents relatively strong rating) I offered a draw with 20...a5. The position is by no means drawn (e.g. 21.Qxg6 ...axb4 22.Qxc6 ...bxc3), and it's something of a cop out, but I was happy when he accepted. When we analysed the game afterwards I felt he saw far more than me and that I had been lucky to manage the draw.
Round 3: Sam vs Oskar H. (135) 0 - 1
Round 3 was the third game for the Saturday and I don't think I approached it with enough energy. My opponent was a surprisingly unexpressive junior player in his mid-teens with an (under?) rating of 135. I was white and played logical but planless moves until we reached a quite simplified position (see below).
My choice of move (18.Rfd1) was a blunder, overlooking the surprising (for me at least) strength of 18...Qa3. I simply played what seemed the obvious forced moves (although in reality they are certainly not forced, but simply losing) 19.Rxc8 ...Rxc8 20.Qe2 ...Rc1 21.Rf1 ...Rxf1 22.Kxf1 ...Qc1+ 23.Qe1 ...Qxe1+ 22.Kxe1 (see position below).
Here white is simply dead lost, without any hope. The advanced d pawn is very weak and black will exploit this and his superior king position to win easily. I found it quite frustrating to lose in such a routine and simple way, without any real fighting or complication. I think the lesson to learn from this is always at least briefly evaluate the king and pawn endgame before giving your opponent a chance to take the pieces off. Instead I just sleepwalked, playing the apparently obvious but actually simply losing moves.
Round 4: Theo S. (120) vs Sam 0 - 1
My opponent in round 4 was the nine year old player with an (estimated?) rating of 120. He had already played solid chess the previous day, and against me proved that junior players often have great energy and attacking spirit. Once again I played too passively as black and should really have simply lost right out of the opening. The opening was an exchange caro-kann, but I answered c4 with dxc4 (a non book move), hoping to simply pick a solid structure and play against his isolated pawn.
The position above (after 10. Bb5) shows that this approach was ill advised, and conducted in a horribly passive way. Here I played 10...a6, which gave white the chance to win the exchange with 11.Bc7 ...Qe8 12.Nd6 ...Bxd6 13.Bxd6, when black cannot avoid losing the rook trapped on f8. Fortunately for me that line was not seen during the game, and instead after much complication (giving my opponent at least one further chance to get a strong advantage) we reached an open position where I was a pawn down but with a pair of bishops vs his pair of knights. I felt I had reasonable hopes for a draw, but with no way of keeping the pair of bishops did not expect to get an advantage.
We reached the position above after 23.Kg1, and black finally gets a slight advantage with 23...Qd2. White answered with the forced Qe3, also offering a draw at this time. I declined the draw (and later offers), and thanks to somewhat inaccurate play by my opponent (at least compared to the moves FM Mussanti showed me during later analysis) I won both queenside pawns, trading the minor pieces and queens to reach an easily winning rook endgame. My opponent played on until mate however, which came on move 59 (Q + R + underpromotion R vs K). I was really impressed by Theo's opening play, and expect he'll improve rapidly.
Round 5: Sam vs Alan B. (126) 1- 0
I had played my round 5 opponent in this event 2 years ago, managing a draw on that occasion, although I only realised that after this game was over. My opponent played 1...f5 to my 1.Nf3, and adopted an opening based around playing e7-e5. Unfortunately for him he left this a little too late, leaving me with a strong light square bishop and a d6 weakness to target. Things progressed surprisingly smootly from there, and play moved forward to the position below.
Here I felt it was important to prevent the advance of the d6 pawn so I played 25.Nd5, and after ...Bxd5 26.Bxd5+ ...Nxd5 27.Rxd5 I had black locked in a passive position. I feel my only significant inaccuracy this game was offering my opponent a chance to trade queens, but after he declined this and started to push his kingside pawns I found a favourable tactical blow.
In the above position I played 36.e4, after which white has a won position. Play continued ...Qh5 37.exf5+ ...Kf7 38.Qd2 ...Re8 39.Rxd6 ...Rxd6 40.Rxd6 ...Re2 41.Qd5+, at which point my opponent resigned. After 40...Re2 I spent several minutes trying to force myself to calculate a checkmate before I played Qd5+, but ultimately gave this up and simply played the move without calculation as it's so obviously attractive. Sometimes you just have to have faith in a move (although this is perhaps a bad example of that).
My tournament rating for this event was actually lower than my tournament rating for the competition two years ago, however I'm not sure it's a fair comparison - and I'm sure my play this time was better. For all that it's clear there is a lot of progress that needs to be made if I ever wanted to challenge for a strong finish in a U160 (especially bearing in mind that there were no opponents above 150 in this event, and most were closer to 120-135 (my tournament rating was around 141). Hopefully this event will motivate me to start working seriously at improving again, and maybe play in more over the board events rather than just on ICC. It's quite different and more intense to play over the board, and I think you learn more.
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