LCCC at the US, Open – Day 5

Six Day Schedule top players.

The six – day schedule guys got started tonight – which includes your humble scribe.

As you can see, some more “big” names arrived to challenge for the title.

Now that the kid’s tournaments have finished, the eight electronic boards that show the top games LIVE on line, are now split between the 9-day and the 6-day top boards.

The link to watch or review games that have been played on the top boards can be found at   uschess .org/tournaments/2013/usopen .

I am sure you can find it from there.

I missed my online poker league round tonight to play chess at the same time on a Tuesday evening. Maybe Tuesday night is the problem, because the result was the same – I got crushed and left with nothing.

I was playing black versus a young man Troy Zimmerman, from Wisconsin, rated 2008. My rating is a paultry 1513, but I have been studying my responses to both e4 and d4 and I should be ready to at least hang in there for a while.

1.    c4

And then panic set in!

1. ….   Nf6
2. g3     d5
3. cd     Nxd5
4. Bg2   c6
5. Nf3    Bf5
6. O-O   h6
7. d5      Nb4?

As I played this move I literally could hear my coaches back at LCCC screaming from outside the cage (or ropes if you are a boxing fan instead of a UFC fan) screaming “Don’t do it! He’s setting you up!” But I didn’t hear them until the knight was on it’s way to try and trap the rook on a1. Yeah right, 2000 players fall for this all the time.

      8. Ne1   e6

I saw this but still thought I was ok. Well I was not. Lesson: never give tempos to 2000 players who know their openings and have White against you. Bad things will happen to you.

9. e4   Bh7

10. Be3   Nd7

11. a3    Na6

12. Nc3  Nf6

13. Nd3  Nc7?!

Well my knight is back home from his vacation but at such a cost. Five moves where White has developed and Black has shuffled pieces. And …Be7 was needed here.

14. Qb3  Rb8

The battle for the d5 square is in full engagement, but my poor a-pawn is asking “What about me?”

15.  h3   ……

Calmly playing a move to keep my knight from harassing his bishop x-raying my pawn at a7.

15.  …..    Be7

16.  Rfd1  O-O

17. Rac1   b6

After 17.  ....   b6

I love this man’s game. He keeps loading up and does not start pawn gobbling until he has his entire army engaged. Very nice! But I thought I may have found a way out of this. I took a long time on this move (12 minutes), and although it got fuzzy, I maybe saw a couple scenarios where I was even or only down a pawn, but either way had counter-play. The third scenario was not so good but I thought I still could battle on. So I went with it.

18. Ne5   Qe8

19. Qa4    Nb5!

My opponent took 22 minutes on his reply. I was sure he was making sure that his assault would not backfire. I could tell that he had missed my 19^th move. If Nxc6, my Nxc3 looks difficult for him, because with the c3 knight gone, his e-pawn is hanging. He looked concerned for the first time. It is a small victory taken from a stupidly played opening by yours truly.

20. Nxb5     cb

21. Qxa7    Bd6?

I was planning on playing Ra8 in this position back on move 17 during analysis when everything was getting foggy. But the bishop move looked better - for some reason that eludes me now - so I was probably right the first time. But I don't think it would have mattered.

By the way, my opponent has only 20 minutes now to make it to 40 moves, so I try to give him something to think about. But he only uses 5 minutes the rest of the way.

22. Nc6    Bxe4

23. Bxe4   Nxe4

24. Nxb8   Bxb8

25. Qxb6   f5

26. Rc6   Rf6

27. Rdc1   Qg6

28.  Qxb8  Kh7

29. Rc8   Qh5

30. Rh8+  Kg6

31. Rxh6+   Resigns

Well I have two rounds a day starting tomorrow. I will try to blog something in the morning. Probably the best of the two games played – win or lose.