Tactics Time Chess Newsletter: Happy Father's Day

Published: Sun, 06/15/14

Newsletter Issue Happy Father's Day

Tactics Time

Happy Father's Day

Worst debacle in Colorado history. ~ Life Master Brian Wall on the 2014 Colorado vs New Mexico team match


T

his position was sent to me by one of my newsletter readers, Geir from Norway, from a blitz game between Carlsen and Caruana.

White to move.

Answer below.

Geir writes:

   Hi Tim,

   Once again, thank you for your newsletters. I do enjoy them, sometimes as a nice break away from work during my lunch hour, other times as a start to the weekend, Saturday morning relaxing with a cup of coffee and a tactics problem :-)

   This might be entertaining to feature in your newsletter, from the recently concluded Norway Chess tournament:

https://s3-eu-west-1. amazonaws.com/de.cisha.live/ BIgKAu7AQiWq7Dg_M_VtIA/ original/white-to-play-and- win.png

   Blitz between Carlsen and Caruana. White to play and win (which as you can see Carlsen did).

TB: Thanks Geir! Good stuff!

---

In other news - From the problem I sent out the other day (The mate in 3 where White gives up his bishop, and mates with just a King and Knight.)

One of my newsletter readers, Gary, pointed me at this site.

http://www.bstephen.me.uk/cgi-bin/meson_display.pl?pid=33351

Looks like that position is by Dr Aleksandr V Galitzky, Shakhmatny Zhurnal, 1900

Thanks Gary!

---

Friday night I did a podcast with Life Master Brian Wall. You can listen to it here. http://tacticstime.com/podcast/life-master-brian-wall-podcast-june-2014/

Brian is very entertaining. He talks about his new pet opening, The Lemming (1...a6), his goal to get to 2300, mistakes that class players make, and many other interesting things. I think you will enjoy it.

---

I was the tournament director for the Colorado vs New Mexico team match yesterday.

The match was held in Trinidad, which is pretty close to the New Mexico and Colorado border. I had never been there before. Took about 2 hours to get there. I rode down with Brian Wall, which was fun.

There were 7 players on each team

Master/Expert
A
B
C
D
E
Scholastic Rep

Each team member played a 2 game match against the representative from the other state. So for example, each person in the Master section (Brian Wall for Colorado, and Douglas Thigpen for New Mexico), played 2 games against each other, one as white and one as black.

We also had a side event with some quads for people who wanted to play, but were not part of the team event.

In the first round Colorado lost 2-5, and in the second round they lost 3-4. So the final score was 9-5 for New Mexico - a resounding victory! Congrats!

Some notes about the event from Colorado team captain Brian Wall who writes:

New Mexico 9 Colorado 5

I was the only CO player with a plus score

Jeffrey Michael Serna 2-0 vs Victor Huang

Jorge Hu Cardenas 2-0 vs Nelson Perez

Gopikrishnan Muraleedharan 1.5 vs Tony Robert Philips

Brian Wall 1.5 vs Douglas Thigpen

Nabil Spann 1-1 vs Corbin Gustafson

Manuel Rios 1-1 vs Brady Barkemeyer

Andrew Lin vs 1-1 vs Paul Porter

Colorado lost 5-2 to New Mexico in Round 1.

I agonized for a month on whether I had the moral right to play the
Lemming in a team match.

I finally decided to ride the Lemming train to 2300. (TB: Brian won his Lemming game)

in the Trinidad quads Shirley Herman scored a 555 point upset against Eric Barkemeyer and gained 77 rating points.

In the NM CO match Corbin Gustafson beat Colorado's Nabil Spann on the White side of a nasty Yugoslav Attack Dragon for a 391 point upset.

In the team meting between rounds Andrew Lin was most pessimistic about beating Paul B. Porter.

After a pep talk by eternal CSCA President Paul Covington Andrew's fear dissipated and he was the first to score a crushing win for Colorado in Round 2.

Nelson Perez changed his attitude too and missed 100 wins in Round 2
vs Jorge Hu Cardenas.

Victor Huang lost a very tough second game to Jeffrey Serna.

Brady Barkemeyer also refocused and beat Manuel Rios in Round 2.

I also scored a win in Round 2 instead of a draw.

So the team meeting helped and we lost 3-4 instead of 2-5 like Round 1.
Colorado fought much harder in Round 2, no question.

Congrats again to New Mexico on winning the match!

Here is the game in PGN

[Event "2nd Norway Blitz 2014"]
[Site "Flor & Fjaere NOR"]
[Date "2014.06.02"]
[Round "6.2"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Caruana, Fabiano"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C07"]
[WhiteElo "2881"]
[BlackElo "2791"]
[PlyCount "21"]
[EventDate "2014.06.02"]

1. d4 e6 2. e4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. Ngf3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nf6 6. exd5 Qxd5 7. Nb5 Na6 8.
Nc3 Qd8 9. a3 Be7 10. Qf3 O-O 11. Bxa6 1-0

You can play through this game here: http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2014/6/14/Game10963594.html

Answer:

11. Bxa6 wins a piece. The b-pawn is pinned. If 11...bxa6 12.Qxa8

Happy Tactics!

Your Friend,