COMBINATION SHOWCASE.....

Background information...
this is a game I played online (correspondence) and was willing to go into the grunfeld defence which my opponent skillfully sidestepped .

please note
- from move 20 the way black uses the dark squared bishop before capturing the trapped rook.
-black uses the passed pawn to force white into passive positions.
moral of the story:
sometimes in chess, one can be excused for delaying a capture if by doing so, one will create weaknesses in the enemy camp.

The Opening Phase of a game...

One really good feeling is outplaying your opponent in the opening. This is where the foundation for any middlegame masterpiece should be laid. herein I present you with two games.

GAME 1:

my opponent playing black messed up his opening and faced with hellfire in the way of tactical complications buckled and finally resigned on move 18. job well done I thought.

GAME 2:

my good friend playing black accepted a transposition into the kings gambit accepted and me massively excited, borrowed an idea from the Evans gambit and pushed the e4 pawn on move six upon which I got properly THUMPED!!
A masterful sacrifice was unleashed on me and I cracked.



MORAL of the story:
know your openings well and execute them with reason. Chess is not a game of emotions so only borrow ideas from other openings ONLY when absolutely certain it will pay off.
Back to the drawing boards for me till next time.

A Case For Borrowing Opening Ideas.

Occasionally one plays a chess game which causes immense pride and appreciation of all the hard preparatory work done.

I am a great fan of the evans and kings gambits but have never really had a chance to effect any ideas from the openings.

In this game however, ideas from the Evans gambit are “borrowed” and ruthlessly executed against a much higher rated opponent.

This game embodies some heavy gambit ideas:

• open lanes for the rooks

• open diagonals for the bishops

• limit the freedom of the opponents king

• attack with all the tools at ones disposal

• “force” the opponent to lose tempo by capturing your material

• sacrifice material to achieve the above five principles.

Looking at some critical moments of the game!!

on move 3:

The move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 .... sets up the Italian game and blacks response 3. ....h6 can be deemed a “tiny” blunder by black due to the possible loss of tempo in case white never needs the square g5 and instead seeks to blast the center wide open.

My question now was how can I make this count?After some hard thinking, I came to the conclusion that any long term plans will revolve around the freedom my dark squared bishop attains.

I will need to develop my dark squared bishop soon but to where??

I had two main ideas:

1. moving the b pawn and developing my bishop to a3. This would have to be real soon since I wanted this bishop to control f7 thus stop the king from castling . Giving the game an Evans gambit flavor.

2. castle king side followed by f4 eXf4 and finally developing the bishop to f4 giving the game a kings gambit flavor.

My choice of action would be decided by my opponents next moves. So I castled king side thus developing more pieces and waiting.

Soon enough black sought normal developing moves and finally Bc5 was played.

Position on move 5

Here my plan to blast the center open and attack blacks king in the center was put into action.

White sacrifices the b pawn in true gambit style with the move b4 and chases the black bishop and knight away with tempo.

On move 23:

From here on end, white chases and harasses the black king relentlessly until with white to move after 23 .....Kf5

Aquiet but deadly 24.c4 threatening Qh3++forces white to surrender the queen with 24.... QXR.

Like clockwork, from here on, the rest is history.

Snatching a draw from the Jaws of victory ..... PART 2..

As usual I have this pesky habit of getting my excuses in before making myself look a fool...

This game's build up involved the team captain scaring the living daylights out of me with encouraging stuff which went something like this
Captain: Francis the team needs the points badly for our league.
Me: As am playing white, should I just go for the jugular
Captain: No cos that way You risk a loss
Me (very confused now ) : Surely the laws of probability are such that 33% games won, 33% lost and 33%drawn. Give me 50% chance to win and am taking it.
Captain: ordinarily thats a smart presumption but this guy was the region champion like 7 years back and he is a very solid player.
Me: &%*!! (hands on head and seeing hells gates open to swallow me whole!!!

After ages in the gents room I entered the playing hall shook my opponents hands and wished him good luck through clenched teeth before playing 1.e4
after a few moments hesitation ( like 2 microseconds) he played c5 and my head even sank further.
Not cos of the fear but rather of the confusion.
ordinarily me meeting the sicilian defencce involves going for the smith morra gambit.
However I decided not to cos

• captain says he is a very solid and prepared player. obviously someone like him with obscene ratings as he did have would be ready to crush the dangerous but unsound Smith morra gambit.
• I have been looking at Ideas of playing against the sicilian revolving around Qxd4 as expertly handled on this site !! seeing I did not look likely to outsmart this wise man I decided to put into practice my 2 hour study of the ideas.
  

OK Now for the game.



As the game progressed, I hit my opponent with the sacrifice 13 Nd5 !! upon which he went into deep thought mode and I went into panic mode since I was sure he would find a 16 move forcing variation which I have no hope of ever seeing until its too late.

As my confidence was sky high , I delivered the earth shattering 20. Bxf7 check and predicted my going into the endgame two pawns up despite having both queens on board.

Typical sods law. I offered my opponent a draw since I figured that going into an end game am totally unfarmiliar with and the words of my captain ringing in my ears half a point wasn't too bad for the day. Just not good enough for me!!!!

well next time am not letting a win escape.

TACTICAL STORM

Having learnt my lessons from my previous game, witness how faced with an opponent slightly misplaying the opening, I decided to steal pawns and eventually a knight in broad daylight!!
Feeling slightly upbeat it seemed am finally learning how to squeeze wins in my games.
enjoy.