Weak.ie An Irish beginner's chess blog

So after the aborted round one, and the pummeling of round two, I was hoping round three would at least give my opponent a decent game.

Yeah, right! If anything, this game was even worse than the one against Zvradko, not so much for the attack-neutering blunder in the middle, as for the utterly moronic ending. Here’s the game, with annotation:
[pgn eo=t autoplayMode=none pieceFont=alpha ss=64 ps=64 h=800 commentsDisplay=newline]
[Event “St.Benildus Club Championships”]
[Site “St.Benildus”]
[Date “2014.07.30”]
[Round “3”]
[White “Mark Dennehy”]
[Black “Eddie Gahan”]
[Result “0-1”]
[WhiteElo “1019”]
[BlackElo “1410”]
[EventDate “2014.07.30”]
[Annotator “Stockfish 210214 64”]

1. c4
{+0.10 John’s going to hate me for going back to the English instead of the d4 opening he was showing me, but I’m just not having any damn fun on d4 and I like this opening…}
1. … d6
{+0.36}

2. g3
{-0.10}
2. … g6
{+0.33 Huh. I might be able to play the Botvinnik system here. Haven’t been able to do that in a while…}

3. Bg2
{+0.19}
3. … Bg7
{+0.23}

4. Nc3
{+0.13}
4. … Nf6
{+0.29}

5. e4
{-0.14 Well, definitely not classical, but it might work…}
5. … O-O
{+0.00}

6. Nge2
{-0.03}
6. … e5
{+0.20}

7. d3
{+0.10}
7. … Nbd7
{+0.14 Well, that’s toasted the usual Botvinnik setup completely, but we’re not looking too horrible overall. f4 push should still work…}

8. O-O
{+0.14}
8. … Nc5
{+0.20}

9. Be3
{+0.00}
9. … Ne6
{+0.20}

10. Nd5
{-0.07 That should annoy his knight if nothing else.}
10. … Nh5
{+0.37 Well, now it’s still focussed on f4, but it’s also shunted out of the way a bit.}

11. f4
{+0.06 That’s about all the pieces I’m going to be able to bring to bear, and I’m probably starting this attack a tempo or three late as it is, so no more futzing about.}
11. … exf4
{+0.21}

12. Nexf4 $6 $10
{-0.45 / +0.21 Didn’t even consider gxf4 because I’m being over-protective of my king. Need to think about that for future games…}

( 12. gxf4 c6 13. Ndc3 f5 14. Qd2 Bd7 15. exf5 gxf5 16. Ng3 Nxg3 17. hxg3 Bd4 18. Rae1 Qb6 19. Bxd4 Qxd4+ 20. Re3 Rae8 21. Ne2 Qb6 22. d4 Nc7 23. Rff3 Qa6 24. Rxe8 Rxe8 $10 )

12. … Nhxf4
{-0.10}

13. Nxf4
{-0.30}
13. … Nxf4
{-0.25}

14. Bxf4 $6
{-0.83 / -0.25 Again, not gxf4 because of over-protectiveness}

( 14. gxf4 Bxb2 15. Rb1 Bg7 16. f5 b6 17. Qd2 Bd7 18. Qf2 Qf6 19. Bh3 gxf5 20. Bxf5 Bxf5 21. Qxf5 Qg6+ 22. Kh1 Rae8 23. Rf2 Qxf5 24. Rxf5 Be5 25. d4 $10 )

14. … Bxb2
{-0.85}

15. Bh6
{-0.92 Yeah, well, the rook he’s attacking is passive and his is fairly vital, right? Nope. And this was worse than it was. As in, the actual analysis says it’s not horrible, but the reason for doing it was all wrong, I was seeing BxR, BxR, QxB, QxB and now I’m still even and my Q is looking down that long diagonal at black’s king. Instead…}
15. … Bxa1 $2
{+1.46 / -0.92}

( 15. … Bd4+ 16. Kh1 Re8 17. Qf3 Be6 18. Rab1 Rb8 19. Be3 Bxe3 20. Qxe3 a6 21. a4 b6 22. Qf4 Qd7 23. Ra1 b5 24. cxb5 axb5 25. a5 b4 26. a6 b3 27. a7 Ra8 28. Kg1 c5 )

16. Bxf8 $4
{-7.09 / +1.46 Glork! And there’s the blunder that shatters the attack because I’ve completely missed the check on his next move. Even stockfish is crying here, if I’d just captured with my queen, I had that long diagonal and a nasty potential check or two lined up.}

( 16. Qxa1 f6 17. Bxf8 Qxf8 18. Rxf6 Qe7 19. e5 c6 20. Rxd6 Be6 21. Qc3 Rf8 22. a4 Rd8 23. Rxd8+ Qxd8 24. Be4 Qd7 25. d4 Qf7 26. c5 Bd5 27. Qe3 Bxe4 28. Qxe4 Qc4 $14 )

16. … Bd4+
{-7.11 And there it is. That’s the (limply) beating heart ripped right out of the chest of my game.}

17. Kh1
{-7.16}
17. … Qxf8
{-7.11}

18. Qf3
{-7.53 Now without a plan and flailing wildly to try to stop the counterattack. Out of ideas, the entire attack is destroyed, the momentum lost and I’m rather demoralised.}
18. … Be6
{-7.41}

19. e5
{-8.13 Wasted effort attacking b7}
19. … c6
{-7.73 And he easily counters}

20. exd6
{-7.79 No choice now but to do the exchange and in the process gift him a more useful square for his queen}
20. … Qxd6
{-7.84}

21. Qe4
{-8.58 Still no plan, just centralising the piece}
21. … Qe5
{-7.16 / -8.58 Feck. Forced queen exchange now, it’s just a matter of what end result we get.}

( 21. … Bb6 22. Qe2 Re8 23. a4 Qd4 24. a5 Bxa5 25. Rf4 Qc3 26. Re4 Kg7 27. Bf3 Bb6 28. Qd1 f5 29. Re1 Bf7 30. Rxe8 Bxe8 31. g4 Bd7 $19 )

22. h4
{-8.33 Pushing the pawn mainly to create some space.}
22. … Qxe4
{-7.79 / -8.33}

( 22. … Qd6 23. Kh2 Rd8 24. Rf4 f5 25. Qe1 Re8 26. Rf3 Bb6 27. Qc1 Bd7 28. Qf4 Qxf4 29. gxf4 Re2 30. Kg3 Rxa2 31. Rf1 Ra3 $19 )

23. Bxe4
{-8.06}
23. … Re8
{-8.06}

24. Rb1
{-8.26 Attacking b2 again but mainly to get a back rank rook position, because it’s doing me little good back here}
24. … Bxc4
{-7.95}

25. Rxb7
{-8.06}
25. … Bxa2
{-8.14}

26. Bxc6
{-8.59 We’re just pawn-nibbling now.}
26. … Re1+
{-8.21}

27. Kg2
{-8.27}
27. … Re2+
{-7.99 Here he comes…}

28. Kh3
{-327.44 Ironically, this felt like the safer option, but it’s a lost position here, stockfish just threw up its hands and gave up.}
28. … Be6+
{-327.45}

29. g4
{-327.45}
29. … Re3+
{-9.34 / -327.45 Oh wow. Talk about a lucky escape. Seriously, I was sure I was lost here. Be5 boxes me in and then it’s just a matter of not very much time at all.}

( 29. … Be5 30. Bg2 Bd5 31. Rb8+ Bxb8 32. h5 g5 33. Bxd5 Rh2# $19 )

30. Kg2
{-9.54}
30. … Bxg4
{-9.72}

31. Rb8+
{-10.01 I know how it looks, but honest, it’s not a spite check! 😀 I wanted to get across to attack the dark bishop and this was the best way to do that.}
31. … Kg7
{-10.24}

32. Rd8
{-11.29}
32. … Bh3+
{-11.26}

33. Kf2
{-11.41}
33. … Re8+
{-2.53 And I resigned. Yes, you read that right. He’s just hung the bishop I was attacking, and we’re facing into an even-ish endgame, but I was so demoralised by this point that my brain quit and went home instead of doing its job. What was I thinking? Nothing, that’s the point, I’d given up. This is the worst ending of any chess game I’ve played of late that I can think of.}

( 33. … Re8+ 34. Rxd4 Re6 35. Be4 Re5 36. Rd6 Bf5 37. Kf3 Bxe4+ 38. dxe4 a5 39. Ra6 Rb5 40. Kf4 Rh5 41. Kg3 Rc5 42. Ra7 Rb5 43. Kf3 h6 44. Ra6 Rh5 45. Kg3 Rb5 46. Kf3 )
0-1
[/pgn]

One major blunder in the middle of the attack, okay, I can live with that. Stupid mistakes happen, Eddie made one when he missed the 29…Be5 mate. But that ending… good fecking grief. That was worse than embarressing or bad, that was downright appalling. That was me letting my fustration over the blunder in the attack kill off my morale completely, leaving me just wanting out of the room at any cost. That’s the sort of thing I spent twenty years controlling for every single shot in target shooting; have I forgotten that much since going on hiatus to have Calum? Because that would be… worrying.

Even the graph is enough to make me bang my head off the desk in fustration:

The club report on the night is here. I think the comments just about capture how I feel about this game.

Round 4’s draw is up and I’ve a bye for this round (but I’ll be playing a friendly match).

Postscript: the Round 4 draw was revised. I still have a bye, but for a moment there, it looked like I had to play John, which would have been about as even a match as Round 2 against Zvradko!

So one of the ideas the club’s going through with from its AGM a few weeks back (a strange affair, not one single punch-up, no drunk belligerents, no shouting, attended by people for whom “reality” isn’t a curious term in the dictionary, it was almost like it wasn’t a chess AGM at all!) was a senior club championships over the summer break for all of the adults in the club and any of the juniors over 1100 who wanted to enter (that gave us 22 entrants, sufficient for a decent enough club championships). The club already has a junior club championships, but hadn’t run the senior club championships for a few years. With an increase in the number of adults joining up, it seemed a good time to resurrect it, so we did.

It’s a normal five-round swiss tournament – and since this is weak.ie and not IveBeenPlayingChessForFiftyYears.ie, let me explain that that’s not a tournament where we all get on a plane and fly to Geneva every two weeks, but relates to the rules for how pairings are determined for each round based on the initial seeding and then the results of the previous rounds. Lots of sports whose competitions involve head-to-head competition use this kind of system, though Chess complicates things with considerations like what colour everyone plays (to try to ensure everyone plays both colours as evenly as possible); byes, which are where there aren’t enough people to pair everyone up and so someone gets assumed to have won that round; never letting anyone play the same opponent twice; ranking people by rating if they’re on the same score in the match; and so on. The wikipedia explanation is as good an overview as you really need unless you’re going to run one of these things.

Personally, I’m revelling in not having to be the poor sod in the statistics office for the first time in twenty years and I’m just ignoring all that and playing who I’m told to, which works just as well 😀

Final entries after confirmations and fees and the like fell from 22 to 19, so a junior got invited in to bring us to an even number; and then after all that I had to cancel at short notice on the night of round one when real life intervened as it has a habit of doing. Feck. At least against Mihailo I had a ghost of a chance (he’s rated 450 points higher than me which statistically translates to a 5% chance of winning), although when the entire Manojlovic family is competing and sibling (and paternal) rivalries are involved, statistics takes at best the co-pilot’s seat.

However, the match was not to be, Mihailo got the walkover, and because of the really odd way that round one played out, Zvradko lost to Stephen despite 560 rating points (there’s your one-chance-in-a-hundred game right there, nicely played by Stephen giving us all hope 🙂 ) and I wound up moving up the family tree to face off against Zvradko in the draw for round two.

Yeah, in case you’re looking to find out how 1019 vs 1896 plays out statistically, don’t bother, its so mismatched that it’s not even in the table 😀 It’s somewhere around the 0.5% chance mark, if not lower.  Zvradko’s about the highest-ranked player I’ve played in any non-friendly match so far, and face it, when stuff’s that hilariously outmatched, there’s only one attitude to take:

😀

How did the match go? Heh. How do you think? 😀

Here’s the game, with annotations:

[pgn eo=t autoplayMode=none pieceFont=alpha ss=64 ps=64 h=800 commentsDisplay=newline]
[Event “St.Benildus Chess Champonships”]
[Site “St.Benildus Chess Club”]
[Date “2014.07.23”]
[Round “2”]
[White “Zdravko Manojlovic”]
[Black “Mark Dennehy”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “1896”]
[BlackElo “1013”]
[EventDate “2014.07.23”]

1.e4
{+0.25

No flank attacks? Uh-oh. Zvradko’s just going to be all
straightforward and clinical, isn’t he?}
1…c6
{+0.74}
2.d4
{+0.59}
2…d5
{+0.58}
3.exd5
{+0.28

Exchange variation. Actually haven’t played this over the board in a
little while.}
3…cxd5
{+0.27}
4.Bd3
{+0.19}
4…Nf6
{+0.42

Off the mainline, but still in B13}
5.c3
{+0.30}
5…Nbd7
{+0.40

Yeah, but the bishop’s got nowhere nice to go anyway. e6 just blocks
up the kingside, f5 hangs the piece and g4 just gets f3 and g4 in
response and chases the bishop around wasting time.}
6.Bf4
{+0.42}
6…e6
{+0.50}
7.Nf3
{+0.45}
7…Be7
{+0.37}
8.Nbd2
{+0.41}
8…a5
{+0.48

Trying to forestall b4}
9.O-O
{+0.44}
9…O-O
{+0.45

Behind on development now thanks to that bishop getting blocked in and
on a half-open file to boot}
10.Re1
{+0.36}
10…b6
{+0.47

Let the bishop out, let the rook over and support a5}
11.Rc1
{+0.30

Contesting the obvious rook over to come}
11…Bb7
{+0.68}
12.Bb1
{+0.18}
12…b5
{+0.68

Worrying about Nc4}
13.Ne5 D
{+0.37}
13…Nb6?! += D
{+1.07 / +0.37

Stockfish says I was silly, but I didn’t want to start swapping
material with Zvradko, who’s probably not even out of book by this
stage.}
13…b4 14.cxb4 axb4 15.Nc6 Bxc6 16.Rxc6 Nb8 17.Rc7 Bd6 =
14.Ndf3?! = D
{+0.00 / +1.07

That is one destructive line that stockfish is recommending there.
Nothing like what I’d normally think of.}
14.Qf3 a4 15.Qh3 Nc4 16.Bg5 g6 17.Ndxc4 dxc4 18.Rcd1 Nh5 19.Bh6 a3
20.Bxf8 Qxf8 21.Nd7 Qg7 +=
14…Bd6? +/- D
{+1.63 / +0.00

Yeah, that’s not so much a blunder as faintheartedness. I saw Ne4, I
was just worried that Bh7+ was the beginning of the end without the
knight.}
14…Ne4 15.Nd2 Nf6 =
15.Ng5?! = D
{+0.17 / +1.63

Stepping up the pressure on h7}
15.Bg5 g6 16.Bh6 Re8 17.Ng5 Bxe5 18.dxe5 Ne4 19.Nxe4 dxe4 20.Qxd8
Rexd8 21.Bg5 Rdc8 +/-
15…Nc4?! +/- D
{+1.65 / +0.17

Trying to give Zvradko distraction more than anything else; Zvradko
and stockfish agree though, it was the wrong way to go and I should
have pushed b4 or h6}
15…h6 16.Nexf7 Rxf7 17.Nxf7 Kxf7 18.Be5 Bxe5 19.dxe5 Nfd7 20.Bd3
Qg5 21.Qf3+ Kg8 22.Bxb5 Nxe5 23.Qh3 Kf7 =
16.b3?! = D
{+0.30 / +1.65}
16.Qd3 Ne4 17.Qh3 h6 18.Nxe4 dxe4 19.Bxe4 Bxe4 20.Rxe4 Rc8 21.Bxh6
gxh6 22.Nxc4 Rxc4 23.Qxh6 +/-
16…Nxe5?? +-
{+4.38 / +0.30

We’re past the beginning of the end now. I thought I was forced into
this exchange; I didn’t see Na3. Mind you, looking at the final
position stockfish was thinking of, I don’t see myself having anything
near an equal chance there, not that I really had one when 900 points
down in the ratings!}
16…Na3 17.Bd3 h6 18.Ngxf7 Rxf7 19.Nxf7 Kxf7 20.Be5 Kg8 21.Bxd6 Qxd6
22.Qe2 Bc8 23.Bxb5 Nxb5 24.Qxb5 Bd7 25.Qe2 a4 26.f3 axb3 27.axb3 Qa3
28.Ra1 Qxa1 29.Rxa1 Rxa1+ 30.Kf2 =
17.dxe5 D
{+3.77}
17…Ba3? +-
{+6.13 / +3.77

Actually, that stockfish line doesn’t look too bad…}
17…h6 18.Nh3 Bb8 19.exf6 Qxf6 20.Qd3 Rc8 21.Bxb8 Rcxb8 22.f3 g6 23.
Nf2 Ba6 24.Ng4 Qg7 25.Qe3 g5 26.Bd3 Rc8 27.Qd4 Qxd4+ 28.cxd4 Rxc1 29.
Rxc1 +-
18.exf6
{+7.04}
18…Bxc1
{+327.46

…aaaaand we’re toast. Game over man!}
19.Bxh7+
{+327.47

From here on it’s just a terrible slow motion mugging and I’m just
playing for the instructive value.}
19…Kh8
{+327.47}
20.Qh5
{+327.48}
20…Qxf6
{+327.48}
21.Bg6+
{+327.49}
21…Kg8
{+327.49}
22.Qh7#
{A fairly expected conclusion. But I wasn’t unhappy with most of the
opening, and I learnt some stuff, so not a waste of time (for me, at
least, I think Zvradko wasn’t exactly challanged!)}
1-0
[/pgn]

To say it was one-sided would be an understatement, stockfish spends most of its time trying not to laugh openly when looking at the game and the graph speaks volumes (in a fairly mocking tone half the time…):

The club report agrees 😀 All that said, I enjoyed the game and I thought the opening was reasonable to about move 12. Yes, the opening is all book to that point, and yes, if I’d been playing chess and doing nothing else for the last thirty years I’d be disappointed with that, but I spent those thirty years doing other stuff – and by getting to move 12 while more or less even against a player as good as Zvradko, I’ve beaten at least one person’s Olympiad disaster! And besides, I learnt one or two things, like that I need to trust myself (just a little) more: I saw 14…Ne4 but didn’t think I could pull it off, and I probably could have if I’d not been staring at Elo rating -vs- winning probability charts instead of learning from Stephen’s game in Round 1!

Never mind, Round 2’s down and Round 3 is to come, and I’ve drawn Des, which should be an interesting match, we’re of similar strengths and experience having both come back to the game recently instead of spending 20 years playing it.

Postscript: the Round 3 draw was revised, leaving me facing Eddie Gahan instead. Outranked by only 400 points this time, but I’ve not played Eddie before even in a friendly, so it should be fun.