Maui Chess Champion

Greetings from Maui, Hawaii! As of yesterday, I am on vacation in beautiful Lahaina, Maui with my wife, son, and some extended family. Today was a bit of a write-off as far as "official" vacation plans were concerned because of my rather impulsive decision to play in a chess tournament in Maui.

My family and I arrived into Hawaii last night around 10 PM local time, which is 1 AM Lloydminster time. After getting Zenan to sleep, Amanda and I eventually went to sleep too, probably around midnight local time. We were all awake by 6:30 AM local time this morning, and after brushing my teeth and taking a walk around the house where we are staying I completed my normal daily ritual of checking my favourite websites and reading the news online. At about 7:30 AM I decided to search for "Maui chess", and to my surprise, I discovered that there was a chess tournament happening today starting at 9 AM. After a quick search on Google Maps to determine how much time it would take me to drive to the club, I decided that I could make it in time to compete in the tournament, and I left to play.

The venue of the tournament was a small pizza shop close to the airport, approximately 40 minutes away from where I am staying. After paying my entry fee of $16 I was told that the tournament was not USCF rated and that the time control would be decided after more people registered. As a few more players filtered in, the organizer - Bruce Martin - held a poll to determine the rate of play, and the unanimous decision was G/20. There were 8 players in total, so a round robin format seemed appropriate, and that's what we did.

At some point before the start of the first round I was asked what my rating was by one of the organizers. I responded, "Around 2100 FIDE", to which the organizer replied, "And how does that compare to USCF ratings?" I did my best to explain that FIDE was the International standard of chess ratings, and that all other rating systems are loosely based on that system, but it didn't seem to sink in, and this organizer (Sorry, but I can't remember his name) referred me to Bruce, who was in charge of the pairings. Bruce had overheard my previous comments about my rating, and when I walked over to him his reaction was "Oh really? Wow." It was somewhere around here that I wondered if I would have been better off spending time by the pool sipping Margaritas.

My first round game was rather uneventful. My opponent sacrificed his only developed piece on f2 so that I couldn't castle, and he then proceeded to sacrifice two more minor pieces for his "attack". After I got my king to safety, the rest was a matter of technique.

In my second game I played the opening rather poorly and ended up in a difficult position, but at some point in the middlegame (where I was slightly worse) my opponent picked up his rook and placed it where my knight could capture it - not for free, but I would win the exchange. He then picked up his rook and placed it on a different square and pretended as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. I called touch-move, and after some minor resistance from my opponent, he agreed to place the rook where he initially moved. His position fell apart rather quickly after that.

My fourth, fifth and sixth rounds were more of the same (I didn't have to play 7 rounds because one player withdrew), although I wasn't entirely happy with how I was playing. Due to my opponent's lack of theoretical knowledge, I was getting into a lot of irrational positions and with only 20 minutes on the clock I wasn't finding the best responses. On the other hand, I never blundered anything, but my wins were anything but convincing. My third round game, however, was the most interesting. According to some of the people I spoke with, Bruce was the favourite to win the tournament, and apparently, he wins every game against the local crew. I decided to focus and take him seriously.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 c6 6. Qc2 Be7 7. e3 Bg4

This method of development is rather unusual (black normally continues with 0-0, Nbd7, Re8 and Nf8), but it is not without merit, and given black's 5th move (5...c6), it is very consistent. The point of playing c6 early is to be able to develop the bishop to f5, and that is the reason white often plays 6.Qc2, following the general rule that white only plays Qc2 after black has moved his c-pawn.

The last paragraph might be rather vague for some readers because they don't play these systems, so I will do my best to explain. First, black has to play ...c6 before developing the bishop (just like in many other 1.d4 openings) because if he plays Bf5 immediately there is Qb3, attacking both d5 and b7. Second, after black plays c6 he is "threatening" Bf5. This may or not be considered a threat, and some white players prefer to allow this and steer the game into a queen-less middlegame after 6.e3 Bf5 7.Qf3 Bg6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Qxf6 gxf6 10. Kd2 where white has plans of playing some combination of h4-h5, Bd3, Ne2-f4, etc. However, I prefer to not allow this system because of the games of Nigel Short, who has proven that black is completely OK in these lines. Last, the only disadvantage of playing an early c6 is if white castles queenside because in those lines black needs to attack with c5, and in this case it is going to take him 2 moves instead of 1 to do this. But, castling queenside in the QGD isn't part of my repertoire yet, so I didn't take advantage of this move order. Having said that, the likely result is simply that the game will transpose to other normal lines, so I don't think it's disadvantageous for white to play this way.

8. Bd3 Nbd7 9. Nge2 Bh5 10. Nf4 Bg4

This move, however, cannot be called consistent. In fact, if black was planning of opposing the Q+B battery he whould have played 8...Bh5 and 9...Bg6. As it stands now, black is just losing time. Somehow I wasn't able to take advantage of this, though, and that bugs me. Probably I should have just moved my rooks the centre and played e4, even sacrificing a pawn in the process. I haven't checked this with Rybka, and at the time I didn't want to take any risks, so I just played normal moves.

11. f3 Be6 12. O-O Nf8 13. Bh4

To add to my last comment, I probably should have punished black for his impudence by moving my rooks the the d and e-files and playing e4. My move is not bad per se, but I shouldn't have let my opponent play so slowly. And this is why:

13...h6 14. Bf2 g5 15.Nxe6 Nxe6 16. Bf5 Ng7 17. Bd3 Qd7 18. a3 h5

Somehow black has managed to get a reasonable position from the opening, and he may even be attacking me! This may be taking the easy way out, but I have to believe that if I had more time I would have punished Bruce earlier.

I reckoned that now that black had played h5 it was a good time for me to play e4 (now that Nh5-f4 wasn't available), and this was probably the correct decision.

19. e4 dxe4 20. fxe4 Ng4 21. Rad1 O-O 22. Bc4 b5 23. Ba2 b4 24. axb4 Bxb4

We've reached a critical position and I believe that it is here where I started to go awry. In my opinion, this is one of those positions where a strong player would automatically play e5 and Ne4, and this is backed by my experience playing tandom chess with Nakamura (we had a similar position where I failed to play this way and I was brutally chastised.) My first reaction to this position was that I wanted 30 minutes to think about it, and my second reaction was that I only had 10 minutes remaining, so I played a seemingly aggressive move - attack the bishop, pin the c-pawn and threaten d5. A perfect bullet chess move.

25. Qa4 Nxf2 26. Rxf2 a5

White to move and win. Instead of winning on the spot, I played a move that liquidated my advantage. The rest of the game is given without comment.

27. Rfd2 Qc7 28. d5 cxd5 29. exd5 Qc5+ 30. Kh1 Nf5 31. Qc6 Qe3 32. Re2 Black loses on time.