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.
