Game from US Amateur Ch East

Hi folks,

This is one of my best OTB games to date. It was round 5, and I had to play for a win for my team (it was a team championship, with 4 man teams, and I was board 1 for mine) to have any chance of winning our class.

I still made some inaccuracies, but I really think playing on the site here is helping my OTB chess. I have added 125 points to my USCF rating after 3 tournaments since I started playing here- from 1685 to 1810 after this tournament. I have been in the mid 1800's twice in separate decades, but life and chess don't always blend well!

I showed the game to some of my friends at the tournament, and one of them (dstarr on the site here) said "Man, you play like Fritz" after seeing the last move. We laughed, and I told him I was going to quote him if I was every accused of using an engine on the site here!

And the way I've been dropping pieces here lately, there's not much danger of that!

[Event "US Amateur Team East"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2010.02.14"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Paul Leggett"]
[Black "Timothy Woodard"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C00"]
[WhiteElo "1712"]
[BlackElo "2105"]
[EventDate "2010.01.16"]
[SourceDate "2010.01.16"]
[WhiteTeam "Clermont's Sandbaggers"]
[BlackTeam "Golden Knights"]

hi Paul when you sacrificed your knight had you calculated the position right up until exf7 and possibly beyond or was it intuitive based on the uncastled King position or some other factor? Very bravely played 🙂

nice game. I have to come up with something vs. the KIA, havnt seen it otb ever but I have a feeling it will pop up eventually.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
hi Paul when you sacrificed your knight had you calculated the position right up until exf7 and possibly beyond or was it intuitive based on the uncastled King position or some other factor? Very bravely played 🙂

It was thematic and intuitive, simply because I couldn't figure it all out. I almost freaked because I hadn't even considered 13. ... Qe6 back at move 11, because I had assumed he would want to keep the diagonal open to play ...Bg4 at some point, hittinig my queen with tempo. Fortunately, it opened up new avenues for attack, so it wasn't a painful oversight. I am proud that I found 18. f6!, or rather that it found me!

Edit: I looked at the hanging rook on a8 down the long diagonal, the resulting mobile pawn duo on e4 and f4, the rook "xraying" the king still in the middle of the board on e8, and the possibility of a future Bf4 with two strong bishops raking.

Good game.

The Knight sac is a standard King's Indian idea which works much better here
because White is two tempo up.
(one because he's White and one because the e-pawn went to e5 in two moves).

Edit 1. I see you have beat me to it in replying to Robbie.

yip good game

you didnt tell us whether your team won the class or not ?

Originally posted by st40
yip good game

you didnt tell us whether your team won the class or not ?

I goofed in the title- I played in the South version, not the East. My team was competing for the C class, and we were one point out. The team that won played extremely well, and they were more deserving, even if we had managed to tie them in the last round.

Out top team from my club (the Clermont Chess Club, in Clermont, FL, USA) won the B prize, so we were very proud of them. dstarr on the site played board 2 for them.