January 2011


Sat 1st: Poisoned Pawn
Fri 7th: Saved by the bell
Sun 9th: Lost Weekend
Thu 13th: That bell again
Wed 19th: When to resign
Wed 26th: What Principles?

Sat 1st: Poisoned Pawn
My thanks to Ian Jamieson for his game against Steve Hill, particularly as he was the victim.
Steve Hill v Ian Jamieson
after 8 ... Ne4

We join the game after eight moves, when it is already apparent that there is a clash in styles. Steve has played simply to get castled and be two moves away from completing his development. In contrast Ian has been more aggressive, and is well on the way to launching a significant kingside attack, though is at least four moves away from connecting his rooks. The overall result is that the current position is unbalanced but probably equal. But not for long:

9 Nxe4 fxe4, 10 Bg5 Qb6, 11 Nd2 (diagram right)
Steve Hill v Ian Jamieson
after 11 Nd2

Steve has removed Ian's central and kicked his queen away from joining in any kingside attack, though his own pieces are hardly perfectly placed. Worse still, he has two pawns, b and d, en prise. Is this line sound? The title of the piece gives the game away somewhat - at least one of the pawns is poisoned. But which, or is it both? I suggest dear reader that you take some time to decide for yourself the answer to this question. Meanwhile I'll prattle on a while so you are not distracted by the game continuation.

Is there an agreed definition for what constitutes a poisoned pawn? Does it have to lead to defeat? Not all bites from venomous snakes are fatal, but we are always better off without the bite than with.
Many players have an early encounter with the concept in the mainline Lopez:
1 e4 e5, 2 Nf3 Nc6, 3 Bb5 a6 with black offering his e-pawn. However the continuation
4 Bxc6 dxc6, 5 Nxe5 Qd4 carries sufficient sting that few whites venture this way more than once. The e-pawn may not be regarded as poisonous by many, but is not to be messed with nevertheless.
Poisonous d-pawn

The d-pawn left is as toxic as they come, with capture resulting in instant death. However this is like a green mamba lying in wait on an otherwise deserted chalk-white pavement - only the most careless traveller will fail to spot the danger. We prefer our poisoned pawns to be a little more subtle.

Back to the game. Let us consider the b-pawn first. Those whose early careers involve much chomping of b-pawns soon learn to wary. In particular the need for safe retreat after rook to the b-file becomes an obsession when considering b-pawn grabs. Lets try:
11 ... Qxb2, 12 Rb1 Qxa2, 13 Ra1 Qb2, 14 Rb1 Qa3, 15 Qc2 with intention of trapping the queen with the rooks. But black has Qa6 or bishop moves to create a retreat for the queen, so is not trapped.
15 Bxe4 is a better continuation for white, getting a pawn back - the threat of Nc4 prevents capture of the bishop by the d-pawn.
But black retains a material advantage despite some uncomfortable moments. Perhaps a cod liver oil pawn, short term unpleasantness but long term benefit.

It is the d-pawn that is truely poisonous, which was rather sad as that is the one Ian took:
11 ... Qxd4, 12 Nxe4 Qxd1, 13 Nxd6+ Kd7, 14 Rfxd1 Kxd6
15 e4 Bg4, 16 Rd2 Be6, 17 Bf4+ Kd7, 18 exd5 Bxd5
19 Bxd5 cxd5, 20 Rxd5+ and white is a pawn up with a dominant position. Effectively 1-0.
Other twelvth moves for black fare no better:
12 ... Qe5, 13 Bf4 and 12 ... Qb4, 13 a3 are fairly obvious disasters;

12 ... Bc5, 13 Nd6+ (Nxc5 and e4 is also decent)
13 ... Kd7, 14 Nxc8 Kxc8, 15 Bh3+ Nd7, 16 Qc2 with twin threats Qf5 and Be3.

A definite case of grab the pawn, lose the game. That's poisonous.
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Fri 7th: Saved by the bell
Time for RR to open his 2011 campaign, with a game against Cheddleton's Bill Armstrong who has featured on these pages before. We join the game with RR contemplating his 15th move following an exchange on f3.
Bill Armstrong v RR after 15 Qxf3

White has a small space advantage, though the removal of several minor pieces reduces the importance of this. White is also threatening to mass his pieces on the kingside, so RR's first thoughts are towards defence.
15 ... Nd7, 16 a4 a5, 17 Re4 Re8, 18 Qh3 Nf8 From this square the knight guards h7 and can also hop onto g6 to slow frontal attacks on g7. Nf6 would also have defended h6 and molest the rook, but invites the pin Bg5.

19 Bd2 Ng6 Unnecessary. Black can start his own operations with Qb6.
20 Rae1 Qd5, 21 Qd3 Rad8 Wrong!, though not fatal. Can see c4 coming, so Qb3 is more sensible even though it doesn't threaten the a-pawn because of the counter threat of d5 revealing an attack on a4 by the white rook. b4 would also have been sensible, looking to create queenside activity with the rook then well placed on a8.

Bill Armstrong v RR after 21 ... Rad8

22 c4 Qf5, 23 g4 Qf6, 24 Bxa5 Rd7 (back in the corner is better)
25 Bc3 spot the threat Nh4 and that one
26 f4 Qg6, 27 Qg3 f5, 28 R4e3 Qxg4, 29 Kf2 Kf7
30 Rg1 Qxf3+, 31 Rexg3 Ng6, 32 h4 Kg8, 33 Kf3
Bill Armstrong v RR after 33 Kf3

White was unable to save both f and h pawns, but responding to a brainstorm in which the h-pawn is poisoned RR fails to take it, turning a comfortable position into a highly uncomfortable one:
33 ... Ree7, 34 h5 Nf8, 35 Bb4 Rf7, 36 Bxf8 Kxf8
37 Ke3 Rc7 (shove the b-pawn and make some space is surely superior)
38 Kd3 (had RR made the last capture with his rook he could have left his d rook alone and so dissuaded the movement of the white king towards the queenside.)
38 ... Rfd7, 39 b4 c5 careless, 40 bxc5 Rxc5
Bill Armstrong v RR after 40 ... Rxc5

41 Rxg7 black is lost:
41 ... Rxg7, 42 Rxg7 Kxg7, 43 dxc5 any, 44 c6 and either a or c-pawn queens,
41 ... Rxg7, 42 Rxg7 Ra5, 43 Rxb7 Rxa4, 44 c5 and black is a pawn down, facing a passed c-pawn and still has his own h-pawn en-prise. But RR plays on

41 ... Rcc7, 42 Rg8+ Ke7, 43 R1g7+ and not liking the amount of work still to do in his remaining sliver of time Bill had his hand firmly shaken in reply to his draw offer.
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Sun 9th: Lost Weekend
A puzzle (right).
Black to play

We've just had Bxh2+ and Ng4+ as black looks to take advantage of having a number of pieces looking at the white king. What next? Answer later.

Having convinced myself that playing better players is good for you I entered the Wrekin congress where my opponents turned out to be a string of higher graded players. Was it good for me? Guess it's a case of time will tell. But I'll claim that it is mainly because I am behind with my diary that I'm just summarising events in one article.


First up was Tony Hynes. Despite being slowly outmanoeuvred RR was merely behind but still in the game after 22 moves, at which point a weak move followed by a blunder put paid to his chances of troubling the scorers.
RR v Tony Hynes after 22 Ra8

23 e5 Bg4 better - breaking the bishop pair must increase white's survival chances despite having to accept a doubled pawn to achieve this
23 ... Be7, 24 Rxd4 a classic case of playing a move that I had already decided was unplayable
24 ... Ra2 no surprise there!

RR played on for a few moves, but there are no prizes for guessing the result.
RR v Trevor Brotherton after 18 ... Nc4

Eighteen moves into my round two game against Trevor Brotherton and I'm doing fine. However my subsequent repeated failure to remove the knight from it's c4 outpost allowed my opponent to pose problems to which eventually I failed to find good answers.
19 Bc1 h6, 20 h3 Qb8, 21 Nd2 Ne5, 22 Re3 Ng6, 23 g3 Bd8
24 Nf3 cutting the rook off from the defence of g3 opens up pinning opportunities of f-pawn against king for black.
24 ... Bb6 after which it is downhill to RR's death.
Malcolm Armstrong v RR after 12 Bh6

Round three saw RR paired with Malcolm Armstrong, who was also my transport for the weekend. When we join the game black's piece placement may be sub-optimal, but the position is playable.
12 ... e5, 13 dxe6 fxe4, 14 Bxg7 Kxg7 The worst of the three possible recaptures. Best is capturing with the knight, freeing up the back rank and ensuring that the e6 pawn will soon be fitted for a coffin.

15 Ng5 Re7 (Nc6 needed), 16 Nf7 Rfxf7 (trying to maintain material equality leads to mate:
16 ... Qc7, 17 Nd5 Qb7, 18 Qc3+ with mate to follow.)

RR now took increasingly severe punishment, but somehow forgot about resignation until move 27.
To round four and black against John Footner, which is where the puzzle at the top comes in. Somewhat tired of failing in my attempts to play proper chess I launched the sacrificial attack, but failed to find the best continuation of Ne5, regaining the piece - white cannot allow Qg5+ with the long diagonal open. Instead I discovered that direct attempts on the king failed, and with the h-file open the direction of motion soon turned around.

Back to white for round five, against Zafer Djabers, whose opening play found me the unexpected owner of the significant advantage of exchange for pawn plus lead in development and safer king.
RR v Zafer Djabers after 15 ... Qxd6

Time for a good think, but no really good plans came to mind. Black's hopes lie mainly through combing rolling his central pawns in combination with threats along the a1h8 diagonal. Despite this I failed to come up with the immediate thrust f4, disrupting the pawns and threatening to open the f-file against his king. Instead pussy-footing became the order of the day:
16 a3 f5, 17 b4 e4, 18 Qb3 declining obvious moves such as Bb2, Rb1, bf4 or f3.
18 ... b6, 19 Bd2 adding b5 to the list of moves ignored. This would slow the advance of pawns by giving him worries on the h1a8 diagonal.
19 ... d3, 20 Bf4 Qe6, 21 Qxe6 dxe6
RR v Zafer Djabers after 21 ... dxe6

22 Rac1 The losing move. Returning the exchange is OK:
22 exd3 Bxa1, 23 Rxa1 Bb7, 24 dxe4 Nd4, 25 Bd6+ Ke8, 26 exf5 and white is a comfortable pawn ahead. Again the threats on h1a8 have been to whites advantage.

22 ... dxe2, 23 Rfe1 Nd4, 24 Bd6+ Kg8, 25 a4 preventing Ba6
25 ...Nf3+, 26 Bxf3 exf3

RR struggled on for many more moves, but blacks grip is clearly too strong.
So five games five losses, but it is the last one that made me angry as not only should I not have let my opponent back into the game in principal, but this should also have been true in practice as his threats were all too apparent. Censored!!!
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Thu 13th: That bell again
With my confidence shot, a game against someone of the quality of John Turner from Holmes Chapel is hardly what the doctor ordered, but it is what I got.
John Turner v RR after 10 d4

John started aggressively, pushing my pieces backwards. After ten moves this meant he had a material advantage of a pawn, but at the cost of his own foot soldiers being somewhat scattered. Clear thinking might have lead me to open things up to try to take adavatage of his dispersed resources, but instead I played more for battening down the hatches and a "Thou shalt not enter" approach. Here for example a simple fork trick whilst not winning the pawn back would have dissolved the constraints his d5 pawn placed on my movement, making my development easy, give me the bishop pair and leave him questions as to the placement of his king:
10 ... Nxd5, 11 Nxd5 c6, 12 Bxc6 Nc3(or elsewhere)
Refusal on his part to cooperate in the sequence would regain the pawn and give me the more solid position.

Too late now. The game actually continued:
10 ... a6, 11 Bd3 g6, 12 Be3 Bg7, 13 f4 f5 In a hurry to fix white's f-pawn and limit the range of his dark squared bishop, though this renders my kingside vulnerable to the advance of white's h-pawn at a later stage. More sensible to resolve my queenside tangle starting with say Nf8.

14 Qf3 Nf8, 15 Nge2 Bd7, 16 Rg1 c6 Finally admitting that untangling not possible without dissolving white's advanced d-pawn. Almost certainly means that e6 on the previous move would have been better.

17 dxc6 Bxc6, 18 Qf2 Qd7, 19 Nc1 Ne6, 20 Nb3 Nd5
John Turner v RR after 20 Nb3

20 ... Nd5 An ill-conceived continuation based on poor calculation of the possibility of a fork on d5. In reality this just increases the chances by freeing white's c-pawn.
21 Nxd5 Bxd5, 22 c4 Be4, 23 Bxe4 fxe4, 24 d5 Nd8
25 Bd4 Bxd4, 26 Qxd4 0-0, 27 Qxe4
John Turner v RR after 27 Qxe4

The full extent of the damage caused by Nd5 is now apparent. Often piece exchange in a cramped position can be advantageous in terms of reducing pressure, but here I'm completely passive and have lost another pawn as well, isolating my e-pawn into the bargain. Yuk.

27 ... Rc8, 28 c5 Rf5, 29 0-0-0 b6, 30 c6 Qd6
31 Rge1 Kf8, 32 Rd4 a5, 33 Red1 Nb7, 34 Kb1 Nc5

I'm not sure either of us were sure what we should have been doing over the past few moves, but tempus fugit and moves have to be made.

35 Nxc5 bxc5, 36 Ra4 Rxc6, 37 Qd3 Rb6 an unsubtle protection of the a-pawn
38 Qc3
John Turner v RR after 38 Qc3

How I hate big decisions this late in the game. Can't save the a-pawn if that is what he's after. Do I allow Qh8+ or prevent with Kg8?. But then Rxa5 would have enormous back rank threats. Win the f-pawn with Rxf4? But this opens up the f-file on my king. Win the d-pawn with Rxd5? In my dreams I get
38 ... Rxd5, 39 Rxd5 Qxd5, 40 Qh8+ Kf7, 41 Qxh7+ Ke8 and white needs to find Qh3+ and b3 to stay in the game. Trouble is there are too many variations on this which aren't so obviously good for black, though in terms of creating possibilities Rxd5 is almost certainly best. Kf7 is also a possibility, but I opted for:
38 ... e5, 39 fxe5 Qxe5, 40 Qxe5 Rxe5, 41 Rd2
It now became necessary to play out a double rook and pawn ending with more pawn islands than minutes on John's clock, and by the time the rooks had gone and the pawns advanced to menacing positions the precarious balance of John's flag led him to offer a draw in what would otherwise have been a won 3 v 2 ending. Phew!
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Wed 19th: When to resign
Resign?

The positions left come from a game from a notorious late resigner. Would you have resigned
a) a pawn down with shattered pawns and no compensation (one),
b) two pawns down with inferior pawn structure in a double rook ending (two),
c) on going four pawns down (three),
d) when about to be pushed off the end of the board (four)
e) later than this?

When to resign is a question that bedevils many peoples thoughts. In a thread on the ECForum last year it was apparent that many think it is unsporting or insulting to play on when behind, though some added the rider that if you did you should play through to mate to give them the pleasure of delivering the coup de grace.

Locally one former player used to show his contempt for those playing on in poor positions by stopping scoring. Might have been fun had an opponent claimed a draw by repetition.

Another ex-local almost assaulted an opponent who failed to resign in accordance with his wishes, and I remember in the bad old days of adjudications reaching 35 moves a pawn down only for my opponent to tell me I might as well resign as he wasn't going to play any more moves and the adjudication would obviously favour him. (The time control then was 35 moves in 70 minutes and repeatedly 5 in 10 until adjudication called at 10 pm. With late starts common one would have to play fast to force your opponent to play on beyond 35 moves.)

So in the game illustrated when would you have resigned as white, or started steaming as black?

Regular readers will have had no difficulty recognising the late resigner as RR, who normally only throws in the towel when totally out of ideas. From position 4 the game continued:
1 Rxf4+ Kxf4, 2 Rh4+ Rg4, 3 Rxg4+ Kf3, 4 Rxg3+ Kf4, 5 Rg4+ Kxg4 realising that the only way to escape checks was to allow stalemate.
(4 ... Ke2, 5 Re3+ with the death of the e-pawn ensuring a draw.)
I hadn't run out of ideas - position 4 is drawn.
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Wed 26th: What Principles?
There are many guidelines that we use to help us through the minefield of possibilities that confront us as chess players. Needless to say these are only guidelines, and there are many occasions when it is quite sensible for us to deviate from their strictures. In his latest outing RR found his opponent was willing to deviate extensively from opening guidelines, which given his own moderate play is just as well.
George Scattergood v RR after 5 ... c6

Already we see that white has moved the same piece twice in the opening, though RR retaliated by declining the opportunity to exchange knights, which is surely superior to the c6 prop chosen. Indeed George now spies that he can win a pawn, though it means an early outing for his queen, again normally frowned upon.
6 Qe2 f6 far from best - the players compete to produce the weakest sequence. With a pawn doomed developing a minor piece is more sensible.
7 Nxd5 cxd5, 8 Qb5+ Nc6, 9 Qxd5 Qc7 again the developing move Bf5 is a better choice for black
10 Qc4 Bd7, 11 Ne2 Rc8, 12 Bxc6 Bxc6 Playing with too few pieces - now white exchanges his lovingly developed bishop in order to get a check of little value. He also concedes the bishop pair.
13 Qe6+ Be7, 14 Nc3 Bd7, 15 Qb3 b6 The players continue to swap pleasantries, when the idea is to be unpleasant to your opponent in the moves you make. d5 is a better square for white's queen (or even take material off with Qxe7+, though at the end of the exchanges white's queenside is difficult to develop.) Qc6 threatening the g-pawn and Be6 are called for from black.
16 d3 Qc6 (hurrah!)
George Scattergood v RR after 16 ... Qc6

Saving the g-pawn leaves black with Be6, forcing the queens off and allowing Rxc2. With the bishop pair on an open board, and with white's queenside still undeveloped, black is happy. George tries an aggressive looking move, but it is little better than resigning:
17 a4 Qxg2, 18 Rf1 (Qd5 Qxd5, 19 Nxd5 Rxc2 better but still losing) Bh3
19 Qb5+ Rc6, 20 d4 exd4, 21 Nd5 Qxf1+, 22 Qxf1 Bxf1, 23 Kxf1 Bd6

George is down the exchange and a pawn, and has two further pawns hanging. Although he struggled on for several more moves, there was never any danger of his getting back in the game.

Moving the same piece twice, early development of queen, failing to castle, neglecting development of queenside, exchanging developed pieces. None of these are necessarily fatal in the opening, but the combination is sufficiently toxic that RR's cumbersome play still proved sufficient for the point.
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