Friday, April 2, 2010

Another Learning Point

Hey all,

Last Saturday I played in the 5 NCGP Points Today #1 tournament.  It was a four round G/65 tournament that only cost me a dollar to play in.  You can beat four rated games for a dollar.  The only prize fund were the rating points that you could earn and North Carolina Grand Prix Points.  I had a pretty good day drawing against a 2000 rated player, winning against a 1700 and 1500 player and only taking one loss against a 1900 rated player (who also tied for first in the event). 

Overall I gained 75 rating points to put me solidly in the Class B catagory with a rating of 1650.

I had two really interesting games.  My draw agains Dan Lie (2000) and my loss against Mike Williams (1950ish).  In my game against Dan (see below) I was able to get to a good position and had to settle for a draw becuase of some bad positional play but the key thing that I saw when reviewing this game was that we both failed to look at some major weaknesses in my king position. 

So, my learning point is that when a weakness is seen, even thought I cannot attack that weakness in one move I need to look deeper to see if there is a way to leverage it.  I have my notes in the game so please let me know if anyone sees anything better. 

I'm still looking at my other game that I lost due to a massive blunder.  At the time of the blunder I was able to get to a position where I had two bishops and a knight against my opponents queen.  Once I have that picked apart I might post it here as well.







5 NCGP Points Today #1, Asian Herald Library
Carerros, Charles (1610) vs. Liu, Dan (2000)
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
abcdefgh
0
(black to move)
1.d4Nf6
2.c4g6
3.Nc3d5
4.Bg5Ne4
5.Nxe4dxe4
6.e3Bg7
7.Qc2c5
8.O-O-Ocxd4
9.exd4Qa5
10.Bxe7Kxe7
11.Qxe4+Be6
12.Qxb7+Nd7
13.a3Bh6+
14.Kb1Rab8
15.Qf3Qf5+
16.Bd3Qxf3
17.Nxf3Rhc8
18.Rhe1Kf6
19.c5Bb3
20.Bc2Bf8
21.Bxb3Rxb3
22.Nd2Rb5
23.Ne4+Kg7
24.Rc1Nf6
25.Nd6Bxd6
26.cxd6Rxc1+
27.Rxc1Rd5
28.Rc7a5
29.Rc4Rxd6
30.b4axb4
31.axb4Nd5