I lost the first game of my match with Steve Kesti for the Reno CC Class B championship last night. I did feel some rust after six months without a tournament game, but it was actually a fun and interesting game, overall, and I don't feel too badly about the loss. There are still five games to go in the match.
An interesting note--on my 28th move I'd planned Rxa2, which would have preserved some hope, but when the position was on the board, I got the bright idea to play Rxe2 and moved it over without releasing the rook before noticing that it was a blunder...moved it back, but my opponent said that under the rules I had to make that capture, since the rook had touched the e-pawn. I always thought that the move wasn't completed until you released the piece, but according to the TD this is the current rule, so I immediately resigned. No hard feelings for the opponent--it was up to me not to make such a bull move in the first place!
Anyway, a very interesting opening--well over 500 tournament games and I don't think I've ever had anyone play g3 on move 2. Of course, I've played the King's Indian most of the time for over 20 years, but that's another story...
1 comment:
Hi Robert, I have to inform of a few things because your optimism about this game was reaching epic levels of misconception!
First of all, your 5...Bd6? and 10...h6? are complete errors in positional judgement. The reason is because Kesti was attacking your Bishop on 'g6' with his Knight and should that exchange take place, the natural recapture is towards the center. In other words, 'hxg6' would be the move, but when you pushed the pawn to 'h6', he exchanged and you suddenly had terrible weaknesses and your pawn islands increased.
Secondly, your Bishop on 'd6' eats on granite rock. Against fianchetto set-ups, the Bishop is better placed on the flank also or failing that at the e2 or e7 point. If you look at White's play against the King's Indian, the stronger lines in the Classical Variation all have the Knight at 'e2' and the books hardly ever mention a 'd3' point. That's because no one wants their attacking Bishop to eat on granite rock.
The pin at 'g5' by his Bishop could have been neutralized by either moving the Queen and not worring about an exchange at 'f6' or simply losing time and moving the Bishop to 'e7' and admitting your foray to 'd6' was an error. A B player isn't normally good enough to exploit time on a consistant basis, so your chances would have improved.
In short, your pieces weren't cooperating with each other. Even a Knight at 'd7' rather 'c6' would have nullified the pin. But the two errors above were in reality horrible positional blunders. Most A-players would salivating over a juicy steak at the sight of such moves!
Eric
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