Holy Cyclops

Tonight was chess club night.  After helping the older of my two nephews with his mathematics homework—it was on percentages, using taxes and commissions as exemplars—I walked into West Chester, bought some pizza (and breadsticks to bring home for my younger nephew), and proceeded to the club.  We meet in the basement of a church, and I stopped to smell a red tulip in its small flowerbed.  Tulips have been blooming all around, although ours—the ones at home, I mean—have been a little slow opening up.  (It’s funny; our daffodils bloomed early!  And wilted early.  I’m reminded of the T.S. Eliot line from The Waste Land:  “April is the cruellest month”; the daffodils’ joyous blooms last only briefly.)  Red, pinkish-red, purple, yellow, white—varicolored tulips are blooming everywhere, it seems.  And I stop to smell them.  One should enjoy the little things in life.

It was the third round of our current four-round USCF-rated tournament tonight, and I played M.R., who is rated about the same as I am.  I had White, and I must say, I was very happy with my game.  It was one of those games where you feel like you’re in control the whole way—a very gratifying sort of game to play.  The moves were 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Bc5 4 O-O d6 5 h3 a6 6 Bxc6+ …  (I wonder if I should have done this on move five?)  6 … bxc6 7 d4 exd4 8 Nxd4 Bd7 9 c3 Qf6 10 Be3 Qg6 11 Qf3 Nf6 12 Nd2 O-O 13 Nf5! …  (White threatens Ne7+, and if Black plays 13 … Bxf5, White will reply with 14 exf5 Qh5 15 Qxh5 Nxh5 16 Bxc5 dxc5, isolating and tripling Black’s c-pawn) 13 … Rfe8 14 Bxc5 dxc5  (Black’s c-pawn is isolated and tripled anyway) 15 Ng3 h5 16 Qf4 …  (attacking c7 isn’t the point; preventing … h4 is) 16 … Re7 17 Rfe1 Rae8 18 Re3 …  (preparing 19 Rae1, 20 Nf5, and 21 Rg3, when 20 … Bxf5 couldn’t be played because of 21 Rxe7) 18 … Bxh3? (hopeless, but it’s hard to find a good move for Black, who miscalculated here; he saw 19 gxh3 Nxe4 20 Nxe4 Rxe4 21 Rxe4 Rxe4, followed by 22 … h4, but he missed 22 Qxe4, when 22 … Qxe4 unpins the g6-knight and allows 23 Nxe4)  19 gxh3 Re5 20 Kh2 Rg5? 21 Nf3 … (now, with the rook trapped, my opponent tries something desperate) 21 … Rg4 22 hxg4 Nxg4+ 23 Kg2 Nxe3+ 24 Qxe3 Qg4 25 Rh1 f5 26 Rh4, Black resigns. 

I didn’t do anything brilliant, although my sixth, seventh, and thirteenth moves were good.  Black just got stuck with nothing to do.  Anyway, I now have 2 1/2 out of 3 in this tournament; I’ll play the club’s master next week.  With Black.  Wish me luck!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 5:07 am and is filed under My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.