I Finally Break Through

I thought it might be interesting to post all the games with some short comments. Maybe one a day, so:

[Event "NYS Championship - Rd#1"]
[Site "Albany, NY"]
[Date "2008.08.30"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Shelby Lohrman"]
[Black "no1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B23"]
[PlyCount "52"]
[EventDate "2008.08.30"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 Ne7 6. d3 d6 7. Be3 Nbc6 8. O-O
O-O 9. Bf2 a6 10. Kh1 b6 11. Qc1 d5 12. Nd1 d4 13. c3 Ra7 14. cxd4 Nxd4 15.
Nxd4 cxd4 16. Bg3 f5 17. Nf2 Rc7 18. Qd2 Bb7 19. Rac1 Rd7 20. exf5 Nxf5 21. Bg4
Re8 22. Bxf5 exf5 23. Rfe1 Rde7 24. Rxe7 Qxe7 25. Nh3 Qe2 26. Rc2 Bxg2+ 0-1

Shelby played the Grand Prix Attack and I followed a line recommended by Kopec in Mastering the Sicilian (what he called a "Russian" system). Black's main goal is to control f5 and I thought I did a pretty good job doing that. It seems all the exchanges helped me; I thought 22 Bxf5 in particular was a positional error netting me the e-file. Of course, Shelby's last move is a blunder which gives me mate in 2, but even if he had played the forced exchange of Queens, I figured I'd have a very favorable endgame with my Rook first picking off the b pawn and parking on the 7th and the Bishop pair.


EDIT: I'm utterly puzzled why the posting of the pgn diagrams isn't working; I'm copying them from Fritz and following the instructions in FAQ. Anybody got any ideas?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Not sure whether it's my "best", but this is the last round game that clinched the tie for second. Both of us went in with 4 points out of 5, though I think he had a loss:

[Event "NYS Championship - Rd#6"]
[Site "Albany, NY"]
[Date "2008.09.01"]
[Round "6"]
[White "no1"]
[Black "Matt Slomski"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A05"]
[PlyCount "71"]
[Event ...[text shortened]... bxc3 32. Rbe1 cxb2 33. Re8+
Ng8 34. Rxg8+ Kxg8 35. Re8+ Kf7 36. Qe6# 1-0

Great game.

I wonder why he kept refusing to trade off the queens. Seems to me that with 2 minor pieces against a rook (albeit down a pawn or 2) he would have had a better chance trading the queens and taking his chances in a roughly equal or slightly worse endgame than in allowing the attack to continue.

Originally posted by sh76
Great game.

I wonder why he kept refusing to trade off the queens. Seems to me that with 2 minor pieces against a rook (albeit down a pawn or 2) he would have had a better chance trading the queens and taking his chances in a roughly equal or slightly worse endgame than in allowing the attack to continue.

Well, I wanted to trade Queens on e4, so that I could recapture with the d-pawn and then play e5 where the pawn is not only a supported passed pawn but kills the long diagonal for the Bishop. I was two pawns up which is a material advantage plus my pawn position made it difficult for his knights to find useful squares. I think he hoped he could eventually get something going against my King with the Queen and Bishop on the g1-a7 diagonal.

Originally posted by no1marauder

EDIT: I'm utterly puzzled why the posting of the pgn diagrams isn't working; I'm copying them from Fritz and following the instructions in FAQ. Anybody got any ideas?

You need to remove the line breaks

Originally posted by Wulebgr
You need to remove the line breaks


[pgn][Event "NYS Championship - Rd#1"][Site "Albany, NY"][Date "2008.08.30"][Round "1"][White "Shelby Lohrman"][Black "no1"][Result "0-1"][ECO "B23"][PlyCount "52"][EventDate "2008.08.30"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Be2 Ne7 6. d3 d6 7. Be3 Nbc6 8. O-O O-O 9. Bf2 a6 10. Kh1 b6 11. Qc1 d5 12. Nd1 d4 13. c3 ...[text shortened]... 2. Bxf5 exf5 23. Rfe1 Rde7 24. Rxe7 Qxe7 25. Nh3 Qe2 26. Rc2 Bxg2+ 0-1[/pgn]

Testing 1. 2, 3 .......


OK, got it now. Thanks.