Barnet Elizabethans Chess Club

Barnet holds League Champions Royston to a draw 2.5 - 2.5 ! Hutchinson vs. T.Gavriel, Board 3 Away at Royston Part 1 of 3

Barnet holds League Champions Royston to a draw 2.5 - 2.5 ! Hutchinson vs. T.Gavriel, Board 3 Away at Royston Part 1 of 3

Barnet holds League Champions Royston to a draw 2.5 - 2.5 ! Hutchinson vs. T.Gavriel, Board 3 Away at Royston Part 1 of 3

I think that most of us would say that a game of chess ought to be drawn; and that when a game is not drawn you should expect to be able to find an error in the loser's play. There doesn't seem to be any real prospect of proving this - chess remains too big to be solved - but for practical purposes I think it's more or less certain. Surely noone has ever lost a game and afterwards considered that they played perfectly, that they wouldn't change any move, that they lost because - well, because black is lost? That being so, I suppose that all defeats are self-inflicted: no matter how brilliant your opponent, the bottom line is that you lose because you play bad moves. Some defeats, though, are more self-inflicted than others. Today's game is another Kan. This time out I had read some of Hellsten's book - but 5. Be2 doesn't show up until page 300 and I certainly hadn't got that far. So playing on my own, again, I had reached a cramped but tenable posi...

I'd met this same Opponent only a couple of months earlier ; a game in which I'd played the opening rather weakly and been fortunate to escape with a draw. This time around I was a little - only a little! - better prepared and managed to follow something close to a main line. As soon as we had to think for ourselves, of course, the game started to go downhill... In post-mortem we both thought that white had had much the better of the opening - but with the benefit of hindsight, databases and computing power I no longer think that this is true. It's probably not until 23. ... d5?! that black is in any real danger. That didn't last long, though: After either 26. Ba4 or 26. Bf1, white should win a pawn and have a very good chance of taking the point. I can't really explain how I came to play 26. Rxd5? instead. You'd think that the game continuation (26. ... axb5 27. Rxe4 Rxa2) was both easy to see and the first thing you'd check. The sorry truth is that I...

I've been meaning to blog the last few games of the 2008/9 season for some time now. The problem is that I know there are a few ugly losses to get through - the one in this post really isn't too bad compared to what's coming - and I must admit that I do find it harder to publish the losses than the wins. Having said that, one of the things that I like about doing the blog is that it does encourage me to make some sort of objective analysis of my play. And that's probably worth more with the bad games than the good ones, so really I ought to just get on with it. So, onwards. A week or two before playing this game, I had picked up a copy of Johan Hellsten's "Play the Sicilian Kan" in the local charity shop. I'd not previously had any intention of playing the Kan, but I do think that my opening repertoire could do with some expansion - and I don't find brand new chess books in charity shops often enough to ignore them. However, as the game will m...

Part 4 of 4