Sunday, December 03, 2006

Chessabit Second Rapidplay Tournament

The second chessabit rapidplay tournament was held yesterday, and three Streatham & Brixton Chess Club players took part - James, Adam W and myself. A full report will follow later, since I am somewhat unclear on a few decisions the organisers made, and will be emailing them to clarify.

But, some interesting chess was played. Many of my games got very messy - especially the one that started with the wild 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. Nc3 Nd4 5. Bc4 c6 6. Nxe5 Qe7 7. Qh5+ etc - and in a few games I was lucky to salvage draws from outright lost positions. I guess that's the nature of chess when the time limit is fifteen minutes each for all your moves.

Still, I managed a couple of very clean wins with white (all my black games were drawn) and here is one from the first round that shows the importance of getting 'your' opening in at this time-limit. 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. b4!!

Undoubtedly the best move in this position at this time limit. The point is 5. ... Qxb4 6. Rb1 with 7. Rxb7. 5. ... Qf5 6. Be2 c6 7. b5 Qc8 8.O-O Nf6 9. Bc4 e6 10. a4 Be7 11. Ba3 Bxa3 12. Rxa3 c5 13. h3 Bxf3 14. Qxf3 O-O 15. Ne4 Nxe4 16. Qxe4 Nd7 17. Rg3 Nf6 18. Qe5 Clearly, black has played somewhat submissively and white now has the makings of a huge attack on the kingside. But after 18. ... b6?? 19. Qxf6 my opponent resigned straight away.

Btw, my preview of the event can be found here.

2 comments:

Adam Raoof said...

Hi Tom - did you ever write a follow-up to this article with a full report? Adam

Tom Chivers said...

The email clarification with chessabit I mentionned took a bit longer than I expected.

The slight issue I thought I had with them they resolved however.

So I'll write up a report before the end of the year - thankfully without the need to go into the complexities of seemingly-controversial pairing decisions!