A Broken Record

After our win against LA last week, we faced Miami in the USCL Semifinals yesterday. With newly minted GM Daniel Naroditsky on Board 2, FM Yian Liou on 3, and soon to be NM Siddharth Banik on board 4, I was actually the “old man” of a talented team with hopes of winning it all. Unfortunately, we lost the match and dropped to 0-4 against the Sharks in the USCL Playoffs.

At this point, I have to ask – what is Miami doing in Western Conference anyway? Maybe they can swap with Philadelphia: at least they’re not right on the EASTERN coastline! I’m sure at least Dallas would vote for realignment at this point too …

My own game was the quickest of the match. Due to their better regular season record, Miami chose White on Boards 1 and 3, so I had Black versus GM Julio Becerra. There are a number of strong players in the league, but Becerra is by far the USCL leader in terms of wins. And with the white pieces in normal league games, he’s been incredibly strong – by my count, 21 wins, 18 draws, and only 1 loss for a 2698 FIDE performance rating against opposition with an average FIDE rating of 2507. His last loss in any tournament as White in my database was in 2011. All this is to say that while I would have liked to win, my primary goal was to at least hold the line as Black.

For the 4th time this year, I played the Winawer French, and for the second straight match, I played (or was allowed to play) the Poison Pawn Variation (full game here). This marks the 5th time I’ve played it, and amusingly, the 1^st time I did was also against Becerra in the USCL (that game can be found here).

(FEN: r1b1k1r1/ppq1np1Q/2n1p3/3pP3/5P2/P1p5/2P1N1PP/R1B1KB1R w KQq - 0 12)

Last week, Melik played the normal 12.Qd3 here and that is what Julio played against me back in 2008. This time though, he responded immediately with 12.Nxc3. It now seems like an obvious move, but this wasn’t always the case, and looking back at my notes for that 2008 game with Becerra, I had no mention of 12.Nxc3 in my preparation. In the past couple years though, Karjakin and Svidler have chosen it in serious games, so it has some pedigree now and I had looked at it in advance of the Melik game. I had not focused on it for Becerra though, as I had predicted some other lines from him.

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I am the Bluest of Blues, Every Day a Different Way to Lose

For the first round of the playoffs, we were facing the LA Vibe. As they finished just ahead of us in the regular season, they received draw-odds while we had color choice on board 1. Taking white makes sense mostly because having the white pieces is relatively more important for GM games, while Board 4 games tend to be more of a tossup.

As an aside, with our season over, I think it’s safe to reveal a facet of the team’s strategy this year: maximize the number of whites for GMs Patrick Wolff and Jesse Kraai, and fit me in if needed. Thus, after Week 1 when I was in NY, every time we had black on board 1, I was in the lineup. Whenever we had white on board 1, I didn’t leave work early.

It’s not that I’m so great with the black pieces, but I guess I don’t show as big a differential in results by color as many other GMs. Looking at my database, my performance rating for the past handful of years is only a couple points below my average rating for that time. Given that the standard performance “boost” for white or “penalty” for black is around 35-40 rating points, I guess I have done relatively better than average with the black pieces. If I have to win, it’s not ideal, but otherwise I also don’t really mind playing with the black pieces.

So, with us having white on 1 and 3, the lineup that matched our color strategy was for all 3 GMs to finally play together with Uyanga Byambaa on board 4. I could play above Wolff, but then that’d break the color pattern, so our lineup was Wolff – Bhat – Kraai – Byambaa. As black on board 2, I faced IM Zhanibek Amanov, who’s played all of 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3 in the past few years. The full game can be seen at http://www.uschessleague.com/games/zamanovbhat11.htm.

The game started out 1.c4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2, and here I played 4…g6. This was a new move for me – I’ve normally played 4…Bg4 or 4…Bf5 setups – but I was looking for something more solid. Maybe it wasn’t the right decision, though, as the positions are often pretty dry and don’t provide too many active prospects for Black. White followed with a double fianchetto and we brought out the rest of our pieces. After 14.e3, we reached the position in the diagram below:

(FEN: r3r1k1/1p1n1pbp/1qp2np1/p2pp3/2P5/1P1PPNPP/PBQ2PB1/1R3RK1 b - - 0 14)

This is a general problem with Black’s whole setup – he isn’t really much worse at the moment, but he doesn’t have much to do while White can still improve his position. The e5/d5 center is nice but not particularly mobile, and Black’s pieces are largely stuck guarding those pawns. I had trouble coming up with a plan, and the result maybe was a bit artificial, but I think it was reasonable given the situation.

Just Another – Ha ha ha ha – Laugher

Last year, when the San Francisco Giants won the World Series for the first time (they’d only won in their previous incarnation on the East Coast), the name of the game seemed to be “torture.” With an anemic offense and stellar pitching staff, the Giants made it a habit of making every game close. Often when it was an apparent blowout, they’d let the other team back in only to sneak out with a win in the end. This game was an (unplanned) homage to that spirit.

The full game can be replayed here (http://www.uschessleague.com/games/bercysbhat11.htm).

I saw that Bercys had played 3.Nf3 a bunch of times, but more recently he had been favoring 4.Qc2, so this didn’t come as a surprise. A welcome difference from my game with Shulman! Bercys repeated a line that he had played a few times before with 4…0-0 5.Nf3 c5 6.dxc5 Na6 7.c6.

(FEN: r1bq1rk1/pp1p1ppp/n1P1pn2/8/1bP5/2N2N2/PPQ1PPPP/R1B1KB1R b KQ - 0 7)

Morozevich introduced this move in 2008 against Ponomariov and won a miniature. He’s since played it a bunch of times with great results – 7/9 with 2900+ performance rating. Interestingly, the rest of the crowd hasn’t scored well with it – 50% and no performance rating bump for having the white pieces.

Anyways, I think there are two reasons behind the move: (1) it’s relatively new, which is already something these days;  and (2), it attempts to close the c-file as later on in the usual lines, the c4-pawn and Queen can be a bit exposed.

Close Only Counts with Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

I’ve fallen behind in my USCL updates, although this time it was maybe some sort of “strategery.” In Week 7 (now almost 3 weeks ago), the SF Mechanics squared off against the Chicago Blaze. At the time, the Blaze were still perfect with a 6-0 record – now they’re still running away with the division, but Miami handed them a loss in Week 8.

Chicago can feature a 3 GM lineup with a current 2200-USCF player on board 4 which makes them a pretty tough matchup for any team. Against us, though, they had GMs Shulman and Amanov on boards 1 and 2, followed by IM Angelo Young, and NM Sam Schmakel. San Francisco countered with me on board 1, followed by GM Jesse Kraai, IM Daniel Naroditsky, and Uyanga Byambaa. After heading over from work, the games got underway at 5:30 PM. The full game can be replayed on the USCL website here.

Last time I played Yury, it was the 1st round of the US Championship and I surprised him with the Queen’s Gambit Declined, via a 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 move order. This time Yury played 3.Nc3 instead, so I followed through with my “threat” to play the Nimzo Indian with 3…Bb4. Then a bombshell dropped – 4.Nf3.

(FEN: rnbqk2r/pppp1ppp/4pn2/8/1bPP4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 4)

This is obviously pretty common, but when I saw this move, I pretty much said “oh s%!$” to myself. When preparing for the game, I did notice that he had played a bunch of games with 3.Nc3 in the past. However, all those games continued with 3…Bb4 4.e3, a line that I have played with the white pieces. With over 20 games of experience in that line and having tried virtually every move order possible for White, I felt like I’d be able to navigate the opening without much specific preparation. Moreover, I only saw one game in the past decade where Yury had gone that route.

Burned by Becerra, Again

After the win against Khachiyan in Week 3, I was back in the lineup for Week 4 as the SF Mechanics faced off against the Miami Sharks. My guess is that we’ve played them the most of any other USCL teams and they’ve had a habit of derailing us in the playoffs in the past.

As usual, GM Julio Becerra lurked on Board 1 when the lineups were posted. He’s the MVP points leader in USCL history and has also racked up the most wins. We had played a couple times previously in the USCL and both those games ended in draws. Last time I played him with black, I played the Poisoned Pawn Variation of the Winawer for the first time in my life. That game can be seen here.

Not having looked at that line or any main line Lopez in over a year, I decided that instead of rushing to update my lines (and walking into his prep), I might as well try to surprise him. I looked at what I could do, and decided on the Burn Variation of the Classical French (3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4). The lines looked relatively easy to pick up on one night’s notice …

The next day, it was the moment of truth. Becerra had played 1.c4 in his first USCL game this year, but our game started with what I expected: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4. After following the main line Burn for a few moves, his first small surprise was 8.Bg5-e3 (the whole game can be replayed here):

(FEN: r1bqkb1r/ppp2pp1/4pn1p/8/3P4/4BN2/PPP2PPP/R2QKB1R b KQkq - 0 8)

He had played this move once before, but most recently (and by far more often), he had chosen 8.Bg5-h4. That’s where I had focused my attention, but I did look at a couple games after 9.Be3. Unfortunately, at the board, I didn’t recall too much beyond my next few moves: 9…Nd5 10.Bd3 (10.Bd2 is also popular) Nxe3 11.fxe3 Bd6 12.e4 c5.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

I’ve neglected this blog recently – I’ve had various ideas of what to blog about, but then I shift back into the lazy gear and don’t actually write anything. Now that I’ve played a couple games again, though, I’ll try and get back on track. (Even this post covers a match from a week ago, but I’m getting there!)

After having played in the USCL from 2005 through 2009, I skipped the 2010 season and I wasn’t particularly certain about playing this year. But with my office moving to just a couple blocks away from the Mechanics Institute and one of the regular SF GMs moving away (Josh Friedel moved to Wisconsin, opening up an extra spot), I decided to give it a go.

My first game back was going to be as black against GM Melik Khachiyan. I was pretty nervous before the game. I had played a handful of blitz games on ICC since August 2010 and no slow games, and I never executed on my grand plans to study before the USCL season. It’s one thing when you’re playing individually, but here, in addition to not wanting to embarrass myself, I didn’t want the team to lose because I missed a mate in 1.

Luckily that didn’t happen … (the whole game can be replaced here)

(FEN: r2qr1k1/bpp2pp1/p1npbn1p/4p3/4P3/1BPP1N1P/PP3PP1/R1BQRNK1 w - - 0 12)

I had expected an Exchange Ruy Lopez, but I guess Melik wanted to change things up from our last (in-person) game. Instead, he went with the Giuoco Pianissimo, and while I had some trouble recalling all the correct move orders, I did get to a position I recognized at this point. During the game, I actually thought this was how my game against Vocaturo last summer went, but it was only a marginally different move order and position. We could have transposed to that after 12.Be3 Bxb3 13.Qxb3 Qd7.

Around the World

I’m playing my final tournament of this summer trip in Sants (Barcelona, Spain) right now. We’re through 8 rounds, and I have 6/8 with 2 more games to go. GM Maxim Rodshtein and IM-elect Orelvis Perez Mitjans are in the lead with 7/8.

I’ll recap the Poble Nou rapid tournament and Sants once I’m done playing. In the meantime, Canadian GM Mark Bluvshtein (also playing at Sants) has a chess blog at http://markbluvshtein.wordpress.com/ where he posts his game and analysis every day. GM Jon Ludvig Hammer also has a relatively new site and blog at http://gmhammer.wordpress.com/.

Finally, the US Chess League has started back up this week. The SF Mechanics got off to a nice start with a 3.5-0.5 win in the first week against the Dallas Destiny. I played the first five seasons of the USCL, but I’m taking a break this year.

The Splat! Heard ‘Round the US(CL)

Last week the SF Mechanics squared off against the Miami Sharks in the Division finals, with the winner going on to meet the winner of the New York – New Jersey match (New York ended up advancing). While the final score was 2.5-1.5 in favor of the Sharks, we weren’t really in serious danger of being in the match. With draw odds and white on boards 1 and 3, we went into the match with high hopes, but as it was, history repeated itself and for the 3rd time, we lost in the playoffs with draw odds to Miami. I say we kick them out of the Western Division!

Here are the positions from our match after 15 moves (of course, we all reached this mark at different times):

Board 1: Kraai – Becerra

On board 1, Jesse was worse against Becerra’s surprise Grunfeld. Black equalized pretty quickly in the opening, but it wasn’t too bad for White. Unfortunately, Jesse found it difficult to back up the weakening f2-f4 thrust and soon shed the e3-pawn for no compensation. He was only saved when Becerra took a draw in a winning Rook and Pawn endgame to clinch the match for Miami.

Board 2: Lugo – Bhat

On my board, I was doing alright. Lugo surprised me with the Two Knights, but after some slightly non-standard maneuvers, I had played …c6. With …d5 soon to follow, I thought I had equalized. White doesn’t really have any kingside initiative, and after the pawn exchanges on d5, White has fewer pawn islands, but he can’t get at the d5-pawn so easily and his queenside pawns are a little weak.

Board 3: Pruess – Moreno Roman

On board 3, David was pretty much lost against Moreno Roman. David likes to play the King’s Gambit (even though Fischer refuted it ages ago!), and every so often, he produces a brilliancy like he did in France a month ago against GM Bogdan Lalic (take a look at the game here). Unfortunately, this time, he was on the receiving end of a miniature, as he allowed …Qh4+ in the opening and then had to defend against a furious onslaught. I’m not sure if the position was defensible to begin with, but from the above diagram, it ended in another move after 16.Qe1 Ng3.

Board 4: Rodriguez – Liou

On board 4, Yian was keeping it together against Rodriguez. With a big time advantage and a position that was about equal, I figured we’d have to rely on our two relatively equal positions to turn into wins. Sadly, after 16.Rxh8 Bxh8 17.Nd3, Yian allowed White to favorably change the structure by playing 17…Bg6. Now 18.Nxe5 dxe5 19.g4 (19.e4 looks even better) Qh7? 20.gxf5 Bxf5 21.e4 netted White a pawn, and Rodriguez cleaned up in a nice fashion. Instead of 17…Bg6, 17…Nc6 looks quite reasonable for Black.

Thanks to a little tactic, I turned my equal position into a clearly better one:

I played 20…h5! here, and Blas took a wrong turn with 21.Nh2. After 21…Bf6, Black is hitting the b2-pawn, but more importantly, he is threatening to play 22…Be5, trapping the knight on h2. White would have no choice but to give up his g-pawn then with 23.g3, but that’s a rather important pawn. Thus, Blas played 22.Qf2, but after 22…Be5 23.Nf3 Bg3, he lost the exchange. Instead of 21.Nh2, he could have played 21.Nf2, which is a little better. Still, I think Black’s position is better after 21…Bf6 22.c3 d4!. I ended up winning this game, but the finish of this game took place after the match was already put away by Miami.

So, as has been the case most years except for 2006 (when we won it all), we wait for next year. I think the team could have done better this season, but we did alright given the fact we were piecing together a lineup for pretty much every match.

From a personal standpoint, I was satisfied with my play. I lost my first two games of the year (the game against Stripunsky was a bad one, but the game against Barcenilla was pretty good and I should have won that one), but then scored 3.5/4 the rest of the way. Thanks to the 2 losses in 6 games, this was the first time in 5 years that my performance rating in the league was below 2550 FIDE. I clocked in at 2495 FIDE, marginally above my 2492 FIDE rating average for the season. Team captain John Donaldson has recapped the team’s performances in more detail at the team blog.

The finals match is scheduled for December 7th, and features Miami and New York. My guess is that New York will carry the day. With a double-GM lineup and then the underrated (for the league) Yaacov Norowitz on board 4, they seem to have the more dangerous lineup. Still, Miami has scored some big upsets themselves to get to the finals, so it won’t be an easy match.

Me Win Pretty One Day

Last night the SF Mechanics faced off against the Arizona Scorpions in the Western Division quarterfinals. As the 2nd place finishers during the regular season, we had draw odds (meaning we advance on a 2-2 tie) while they had choice of color on boards 1 and 3.

We had a topsy-turvy match against them earlier in the regular season (which they won, 2.5-1.5), but this time, we controlled the tempo from the start.

I was white on board 2 against IM-elect Daniel Rensch. We’ve played 3 times over the past 5 years, but I had black in all those games (with 2 draws and 1 loss). I think this was his first appearance on board 2 in the USCL, but the Scorpions probably wanted to get a master on board 4 to deal with Yian Liou, our underrated anchor.

Playing a Queen’s Indian, Danny went astray pretty quickly and chose a line that I don’t think is particularly good for Black (the full game can be replayed here):

Instead of the normal 8…c6, which commits White to a real pawn sacrifice, Black played 8…Ne4. After 9.cxd5 Bxh4 10.Bxe4 Bf6, Black is stuck with a worse pawn structure and a bad bishop on b7. This is similar to a line after 7.Re1 (instead of the 7.d5 that I played) that goes 7…c5 8.d5 exd5 9.Nh4 Ne4 10.cxd5 Bxh4 11.Bxe4 Bf6 – in this structure, though, Black’s c-pawn is on c5 already, so what he has is a slightly odd Benoni structure with his bishop on b7. It’s maybe not the best line against 7.Re1, but it is certainly quite playable.

Anyways, in the game, we reached the following position after 16.Bg2:

White has two main threats: one is 17.Ne4, exploiting the weakened kingside dark squares, while the other is b2-b4 at some point, sidelining the knight on a6. I think White has a big positional plus, for example, 17…Qe5 (not 17…Qe7 18.d6!, winning a lot of material) 18.Rad1, and Black is going to struggle to activate his minor pieces or deal with White’s central pawn roller with e4 and f4.

However, Danny may have missed the strength of Ne4 as he played 16…c5, trying to fix his queenside pieces and structure. After 17.Ne4 Qe5 18.f4 Qd4+ 19.e3! Qxe3+ 20.Kh1, Black has no good way of dealing with the knight hops to d6 and f6, and so he’s forced to give up the exchange with 20…Rxe4.

With relatively equal positions on the other boards at this point, this put a lot of pressure on the other Arizona players to try and make something of nothing, as they had to score 2.5 to advance. Danya’s game on board 3 was the only one I thought had decent chances of being decisive, and in the end, that was the first game to finish – Danya outplayed Adamson in a complicated position in mutual time pressure.

Meanwhile, I was doing my best to screw things up. Instead of playing for checkmate with 33.Qxh7, I played 33.Rxd5 Bxd5 34.Qxd5. I was now up a piece for a couple pawns, which was completely winning, but like a complete idiot, I botched the endgame in epic fashion.

In the above position, I played 46.g4??, after which it’s Black who is winning! After 46…d3 47.b3, instead of 47…cxb3??, Black can win with 47…Kd4!. I only realized this after I played 47.b3. After 47…Kd4 48.bxc4 b3, Black has 3 passed pawns, and White’s king and bishop can’t hold them all off.

Instead of 46.g4??, though, White is winning with 46.gxf4+ Kxf4 47.Bd5. The pawns are picked up after 47…c3+ 48.bxc3 dxc3+ 49.Kd3 Kg3 50.Bb3 Kxh4 51.Kc4. White picks up all the queenside pawns and gives his bishop up for Black’s h-pawn. That was my original plan, but then I saw the b3 idea, and I figured that was even simpler. Oops. Luckily for me, Rensch didn’t spot the …Kd4 idea, although it probably wouldn’t have made a difference for the overall result.

Ramirez and Wolff were exchanging draw offers on board 1 – Wolff was playing on a computer without the sound on, and so he didn’t hear the draw offers, and ICC doesn’t show the move number for the draw offer (not sure why they don’t implement this simple change), and so he kept noticing the draw offers too late. Meanwhile, Yian ended up winning the drawn endgame on board 4, so we ended up with a big 3.5-0.5 victory.

The other Western quarterfinal was a massacre, as Miami beat Seattle 3.5-0.5. GM Julio Becerra slaughtered GM Hikaru Nakamura on board 1 in 12 moves (12 moves!!!) – despite only starting 15 minutes before us, that game was essentially over before we had even played 10 moves. Here’s the final position in which Nakamura resigned:

That’s nasty.

Thus, next week we face off against the Sharks. While we’ve generally done well against them in the regular season, we are 0-2 against them in the playoffs (they eliminated us in 2005 and 2007 by a 2.5-1.5 score in each match). Hopefully the third time is the charm!

Backing into the Playoffs

Yesterday was the last round of the 2009 USCL regular season. Going into the match, we were tied with the Arizona Scorpions for 2nd place in the Western Division, a full match point behind Seattle and a point ahead of Miami.

Our primary goal was to secure draw odds in at least the first round of the playoffs, and to do that, we needed one of the following scenarios to play out:

(1)   A win in our match, coupled with an Arizona loss and a Seattle loss would give us the 1st seed in the West, because while we’d be tied on game points, our opponent’s average rating was higher than Seattle’s.

(2)   A win or draw in our match, coupled with an Arizona loss and a Seattle draw or win, would give us the 2nd seed.

(3)   A draw in our match would give us 2nd place at best, and only if Arizona lost their match (again, our opponent’s average rating was higher than Arizona). If Arizona drew their match, then they’d have more game points than us, and so it wouldn’t get to the opponent’s average rating.

Dallas has traditionally been a pretty tough match for us, so we weren’t expecting a cakewalk. An hour or so into the match, it wasn’t really clear to me how we were doing.

My game wasn’t particularly interesting – Bercys surprised me with the Queen’s Gambit Declined. I had been expecting a King’s Indian, so this was a big departure from the norm. As it was, we repeated a game of mine against a British GM earlier this year for a little less than 20 moves. That game ended in a draw, and this one was headed for the same result. I played a bit too loosely on the kingside, but with a big time advantage, I wasn’t in too much trouble.

By the time it was clear that I wouldn’t have any winning chances on my board, our board 4 phenom, Yian Liou, beat WFM Zorigt on board 4 in a strange Dragon endgame. At that point, we were a little better on board 3 (Naroditsky was up the exchange, although I thought White had decent compensation) and clearly better on board 1 (where Wolff had turned around a dubious-looking opening into a big endgame advantage). I quickly offered a draw, and Bercys was kind enough to accept.

In this position after 23…Rb8 from Ludwig-Wolff, White is already in some trouble:

White has to cover the b2-square, and so Ludwig played 24.Kc2. Wolff played 24…Ba6, threatening …Rb4 in some lines, so Ludwig covered that with 25.a3. Patrick then rerouted his knight nicely with 25…Na8!, heading for b6. This further inconvenienced White, who had to play 26.Na4 to cover the b6-square. With the e4-pawn no longer attacked, Black had a free hand to come in via the f-file with 26…Rf5!. With a series of jabs, White has been backed into a corner.

Wolff could have capped his effort off with a nice little tactic in the following position after 29.Rg4:

Instead of 29…Bc8 (which maintains a clear plus, because 30.Rxe4 loses to 30…Bf5 31.Re7? Rc2#!), Black had 29…Nxd5+!, taking advantage of the fact the Bf1 has one less defender. After 30.cxd5 Bxf1 31.Rxe4 Bg2, White is toast – Black’s rooks and bishop are too active, and White’s king is too exposed.

On the plus side, at this point, Arizona had already gone down to Miami, so we were playing with house money in a sense as the 2nd seed was ours. However, the Seattle match was up for grabs, and if they lost, we would have liked to get at least 2.5 from our match to take the top seed!

Unfortunately for us, after some good defense from Ludwig and mistakes in mild time-pressure, Wolff found himself having to defend an exchange-down endgame.

This was the final chance in my view for Black to try and save the game. Patrick played 48…Bh3, going after the c4-pawn. While it does win a pawn, it frees the d5-pawn for White and that is the more important factor. Black’s connected passers never became a factor and Ludwig pushed his d-pawn all the way. It seems to me that Black can try for a draw with either 48…Bc8 (forcing the rook to take the a7-pawn with Ra8xa7, while Black pushes on the kingside) or 48…Kf6 (centralizing the king, and again planning to push the kingside pawns).

In any case, the result of this game was a moot point as Seattle held on for a draw. Thus, we took 2nd place in the Western Division, behind Seattle and ahead of Arizona and Miami. After winning the division in 2005 and 2006, we’ve taken 2nd place the past 3 years. Our best regular season record of 8.5/10 however has gone untouched, as both Seattle and New Jersey fell just short of the mark this year.

Next week, we’ll face the Scorpions with draw odds (they’ll choose the color they want on board 1 tonight). We have a 1-1 record against them historically.