So now the first half of the Chess960 tournament has been played and I've got 3 points out of 5. This is nothing particularly special as I won my games against the weaker players and lost against two players above ELO 2500.
Obviously I can't comment on all of my games but I'll bring my game against former World Championship Candidate Andrej Sokolov, who has been residing in France since the fall of the Soviet Union and still has ELO 2560. In the FIDE candidate cycle 1985-1987 he rushed through until Karpov stopped him in the candidate finals. He's actually quite a nice guy and after the game I got the opportunity to use my rotten command of the French language to analyse our game with him (-:
Andrej Sokolov (2560) - Oliver Uwira (2260)
Chess Classic Mainz 2009 - FiNet Open (Chess960, Round 2, Board 31)
1. d4 c5
Direct counter attack - my bishop attacks h2 and White is almost forced to respond with the same attack. My opponent said that he didn't even see that h2 is weak when he played his first move - that's how Chess960 is like. A grandmaster is capable of overlooking a simple counter attack at move 1 (-:
I, on the other hand, have seen this idea quite a lot before. It's one of the basic Chess960 tactics... it didn't help me too much, though...
2. c3 Bxh2 3. Bxh7 Bxg1 4. Qxg1 cxd4 5. cxd4 Rxc1+ 6. Kxc1 d6?!
My move is a serious inaccuracy. As analysis showed, I should have played 6...f6 with the idea of playing ...Bg6 which forces White to take at g8 and after ...Qxg8 I'm the one winning the tempo by means of attacking a2.
7. f3 g5 8. d5 b6
Well, this is the tempo White has won now. I can't afford to rescue the exchange as I'm sure I'll get mated somehow by Qxa7 and Ba5. The following moves up until the next diagram constitute something like a normal development of the game. The crucial position is at move 16.
9. Ng3 Ng6 10. Bxg8 Qxg8 11. Nc2 Nc7 12. e4 Nf4
13. Bd2 Nd3+ 14. Kb1 Bd7 15. Qe3 Nf4 16. Qa3
Now I have trouble with my queenside, but I thought that I would get sufficient counterplay by a series of knight hops. Sadly, my opponent shows me that I don't have anything and that the White position is already vastly superior.
16...Nb5 17. Qa6!
It looks kind of dangerous to move the queen into enemy terrain where it might easily be trapped by Black's minor pieces. But White has everything under control...
17...Nd3 18. Qb7 Qg7?!
I won't call this a blunder because Fritz still doesn't see too many problems for me, but here I begin to crumble under time pressure. Either 18...Qh8 (in order to not present a target to a possible Nf5) or better play later on would have been necessary here...
19. Bc1
Of course, I kind of overlooked this one. Now I don't have any time left and I don't have a plan and I'm under pressure... not a good situation to be in...
19...Nc5 20. Qb8+ Bc8 21. Nf5 Qf6 22. Nb4 Na6?? 23. Nxa6 1-0
I guess I'm already dead at the time of my last blunder, but it was still kind of embarassing to go down like that...
Code:
[Event "FiNet Open Mainz (Chess960)"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2009.07.30"]
[Round "2.31"]
[White "Sokolov, Andrej"]
[Black "Uwira, Oliver"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2560"]
[BlackElo "2260"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "nbrkbqrn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/NBRKBQRN w - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "45"]
1. d4 c5 2. c3 Bxh2 3. Bxh7 Bxg1 4. Qxg1 cxd4 5. cxd4 Rxc1+ 6. Kxc1 d6
7. f3 g5 8. d5 b6 9. Ng3 Ng6 10. Bxg8 Qxg8 11. Nc2 Nc7 12. e4 Nf4
13. Bd2 Nd3+ 14. Kb1 Bd7 15. Qe3 Nf4 16. Qa3 Nb5 17. Qa6 Nd3 18. Qb7 Qg7 19. Bc1 Nc5 20. Qb8+ Bc8 21. Nf5 Qf6 22. Nb4 Na6 23. Nxa6 1-0
Finally I want to show a blunder of Germany's most accomplished arrogant b*st*rd
Arkardij Naiditsch (2697) - Sergey Grigoriants (2564)
Chess Classic Mainz 2009 - FiNet Open (Chess960, Round 4, Board 7)
Hmm, what do I know? If somebody is able to win, it must be White. But karma strikes back, as we know. The following is all coupled with a funny story. A friend of mine told me that right after he entered the hall with a couple of his trainees, they saw the above position and one of the kids said "uh, Naiditsch, I hope he'll lose".... well, this is what happened:
1.e5?? Rg4+ 2. Kf3 Rg3+ 0-1
Ouch...
Alright guys, that's it for today. Hope you'll enjoy it. I'm going to the beers now ((-: