My opponent in this game, Edwin Simanis, was a consistent USCF Class A player for many years, and reached the golden 2000 rating for awhile in 1999 when he made the semi-finals of the Northern Nevada Championship. He was always a threat to anyone in Reno on a given night. This was one of my last games in Nevada before I left for Alaska.
In this game one of the flaws in my play is starkly revealed. I play the first 32 moves of a complex struggle at a pretty high level, and when he blunders on move 26 I reach a clearly winning position. But when I could get the kill shot in with 33. Qg5! I get confused and play a string of second- and third- best moves one after the other, until there are no winning chances. Finally, with an advantage in the ending (bishop and knight v. rook) he offered a draw!
Winning a "won game" and playing well after hours of intense concentration are both skills that I need to improve, but then I suppose that's true of almost all players, even some pretty highly rated ones. I have some interesting information and thoughts in that regard, but that's my next post. Until then, I hope you enjoy the eventful Memorable Game 12:
2 comments:
Amazing Master-level game played by White, except for inexplicably not winning the won position.
If Black had lots of clock-time, Black could continue to play for the win in the final position.
My study for the last few months has consisted almost entirely of winning the won position. It pays not to have flaws in that part of the game.
I could only hope to play as well as you did as White in that game. I would be proud to have played such a long opening smash against a tough opponent as you did. I usually draw those wins too, as it gets to be a lot of sustained thinking, and clock/energy management becomes paramount in those rare, blessed occasions, where one has to find the win or could well lose.
LinuxGuy--hey, thanks much, I did feel like I played almost all the right moves for a long time. I have some material I will present in my next post about how to help finish games better.
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