Category: Chess Tournaments

Round 5 featured a tough fight for the top spots. Hamlet had the chance to catch me in the final round to win the tournament but an opening surprise in game one and a relentless clock in game two thwarted his efforts.
Randy also employed an opening surprise in his match. Facing John’s Slav he played 4. Nbd2. A tricky move, if black doesn’t play energetically this knight will get access to powerful squares. John reacted well and soon his queenside pawns were storming ahead. In game two Randy was under some pressure and used a positional exchange sacrifice to stop John in his tracks. In the end John was down to 6 minutes against Randy’s 18 minutes and decided not to tempt fate and acquiesced to a draw by repetition.
Chris needed a strong showing against Arturo to secure a top-3 spot. In game 1 Chris got a fantastic position out of the opening. Arturo chose a very passive d6 in the classical Ruy Lopez that gave Chris a free hand to build up a dominant position across the board. Arturo put up a creative resistance and managed to trick Chris into repeating moves. To avoid the draw Chris’ King had to leave safety, pick up a pawn in the middle of the board and return to safety. All this with black’s potential mating combo of queen and knight in the vicinity. With a minute left this is a tough call. In game two Arturo stayed true to his opening convictions and started with 1 f4. On the one hand a narrow opening repertoire allows the opponent to prepare for the match and Chris picked the combative Fromm’s Gambit (1. … e5) to counter Arturo’s Bird opening. On the other hand people that play the same openings all the time tend to know their lines and it’s difficult to really surprise them. Arturo declined the Fromm’s Gambit with 2. e4. In the resulting King’s Gambit Chris mixed up two lines and Arturo got a King’s Gambit dream position which he easily converted to a full point. After their match Chris and Arturo were clearly not done with each other and started an epic blitz match, not a bad way to spend a Friday night.
As a result of these three matches we have clear first, second, and third places.
Congratulations and many thanks to all the players that helped to make this tournament a success.

Below you find all the games of round 5 with some comments.

On Friday the 23rd of October at 7pm we will be hosting a 2h blitz arena. The name of the tournament is Soltis Arena and the password to join is: Lasker
On the 30th of October we start our next tournament, the Steinitz Open, a 5 round Swiss tournament with a time control of G60+10. Please note, this will be a classical Swiss tournament with only 1 game per round. Also note the change of time control.

Take advantage of the early bird sign up and register here:
https://caissachess.net/online-registration/edit/878
Let me know if you have any issues signing up.

In round 4 we were treated to some exciting chess. On board 1 Chris had the chance to take over the lead. True to his style he went for the combative King’s Indian defence in his first game against me and faced yet another 6. h3 as we did in our last encounter. As it happens so often in the King’s Indian, white gets a fantastic position but black doesn’t seem to mind too much and just attacks. The fact that my king remained in the center added to the complications. 

Black is ready to play f5. How should white continue? I decided to play Nb3 and to get ready to take everything on c5. I can’t say that I was overly confident as this leaves my dark squares pretty vulnerable. 

Luckily the queen on c5 is not only a good attacking piece but is also well positioned to take over some defensive tasks. 

In game 2 Chris surprised me with a 5. Qe2 Ruy Lopez. The opening was dominated by mutual inaccuracies and yielded a position in which Chris was a pawn up and I had some compensation. An unusual position for Chris. If you look at his past games you will see that he is the person that is a pawn down and looks for the initiative to justify his play. 

Hamlet and Arturo liked the opening of their first game so much that they went on to play it again with reversed colors. 

The center is blocked, what should black do?

Reagan and John both won their black games. In game 1 Reagan played the rare 2 Bf4 against John’s Slav. John reacted very well and soon got a dominant position. In game 2 Reagan was fighting back with a Benoni and got a Benoni-dream position after white commited a couple of inaccuracies.

Patrick gave Randy a good fight. But it’s difficult to overcome someone with Randy’s experience. 

Patrick just played 3. … Nd7. In the Slav or Semi-Slav the queen’s knight is often developed to d7. Often, but not always. In contrast to other games chess is a game where both players have access to all information. That doesn’t mean that we have to give our opponent even more information. By playing 3. … Nf6 black keeps his cards close to the chest and retains a maximum to flexibility to react to white’s plans. The text move commits the black queen’s knight too early. Randy didn’t have to be asked twice and played 4 cxd5. Now we have an exchange Slav and black wishes the knight could go to c6. 

Robbie and Russel reached the following position after a wild game.

Black just played Kc5-b6. Are white’s split pawns a match for black’s connected passers? How can white save the game? 

You can replay all games of round 4 below.

This Friday, round 5, is the last round of the Lasker Open. The prize money for the winner is $55, second place $33, and third place $22. Next week Friday we will host a 2h blitz arena on Lichess. This blitz tournament will serve as a tiebreaker for the Lasker Open. There won’t be any split prizes.

Here are the pairings for round 5:

I my game against Randy white’s and black’s knights were all over the place. At times they appeared in the wrong places and sometimes they missed great opportunities. In the end one of them was allowed to deliver a checkmate.

Players of all ratings are invited to join Chess.com’s Season 2 of Clubs League — tentatively scheduled for Saturday, November 7 through Saturday, December 19, 2020. John Wright will be the Team Admin. Leave a Comment below if you’d like to play.

There are two divisions – Division A and Division B. There is no difference in the divisions besides the minimum number of players per match. Division A has a minimum of 10 boards per match. Division B has a minimum of 5 boards per match. We are seeking as many players as possible so that we may qualify for Division A.

Each match is a club vs. club match of two segments – rapid and blitz. In each segment, the club with the most game points wins that match segment.

Each segment is weighted equally – if a club wins both segments, they earn a full match point, if one club wins the rapid and the other club wins the blitz, it is a tied match.  In case one segment is tied, the club that wins the other segment will receive the full match point.  Game points are not relevant in determining the match result. Only the result of each segment (win, loss, draw) is significant.

👉🏽 Players are not required to play both segments in a match – they may play either segment, or both. 

In each segment (rapid and blitz), each player will play 2 games against the same opponent (white/black).  Players will not necessarily play the same player in both segments.

The rapid time control is 15 minutes plus 2 second increment. The blitz time control is 3 minutes plus 2 second increment.

Players should show up early for their matches and ensure a stable connection. It is recommended but not required to play from a computer in case of connectivity issues. Players must join the rapid and blitz segments separately.

Clubs are encouraged to bring as many players as possible to each match.  The minimum for each segment of each match is 10 players per club for Division A and 5 players per club for Division B.  If a club brings less than the minimum number of players, the match will still be played, but that club will be forfeited on the “missing” boards. We are hoping to get 10-15 players committed to playing for the SGVCC Team so that we can can qualify for Division A. John Wright will be the Team Admin for Season 2.

👉🏽 We do not have to use the same players for each match.

The default match time is Saturday 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern Time.

The top 16 clubs in each division will qualify for the playoffs (scheduled for January 2021). The League will tentatively have weekly matches on seven (7) consecutive Saturdays – November 7, November 14, November 21, November 28, December 5, December 12, December 19, 2020.

Leave a Comment below or get in touch with John Wright if you’d like to be part of the team or have any questions.

Chris Stychinsky and John Wright faced each other in the second round. I talked about their game one encounter already. In this post we are taking a closer look at their second game.

Chris seems to have moved on from his swashbuckling opening repertoire and played the Ruy Lopez against John’s 1 … e5. I can only recommend to follow in Chris’ footsteps. Playing complex openings such as the Ruy Lopez exposes us to a variety of pawn structures and strategic ideas. In the long run this will make us better chess players.

John countered Chris’ Ruy with the Zaitsev variation—the battle ground of Karpov and Kasparov in the 80s. The positions arising from this opening are often wild, black players seek their fortune of the queenside and white players try to deliver a quick checkmate. However, before launching queenside operations black puts pressure on e4 to slow down white’s queen’s knight attempt to join kingside operation.

The knight manoeuvre I’m referring to was introduced by Steinitz and is commonly used in Ruy Lopez and Gioucco Piano positions.

The best square for the knight on b1 would be f5. It gets there via d2, f1, and g3 and there is very little black can do in this particular situation. Also note, white only advanced the d-pawn to d3 and e4 is under firm control here.

We are now ready to have a look at the game:

Now would be a good time for a black strategy reset. The accidental pawn sacrifice offered white some hope to seize the initiative. Black’s main priority should be to thwart all of white’s active attempts. White enjoys some open diagonals and lines thanks to dropping a pawn. The white bishops are in good positions and both knights are already on the kingside and ready to move to more active squares. Thanks to white’s unfortunate pawn loss black already won the battle on the queenside. There is not much left to fight for.

Stay tuned for part two of the knight move series. I will talk about my game with Randy. Here is a little preview:

Why didn’t Randy take the rook on h2?