Sunday, January 20, 2019

Fun Games and Updates on 20 Jan 2019

A quick update on the Siglap South CC Chess Quartet:
  • "Sunday Chess Uncle", Eric, has finally returned after a few weeks' absence. And he did it with a bang, beating our #1 player, Seng Chin within the Chess Quartet. Now within the 4 of us (Seng Chin, Willim, Eric and myself), nobody has perfect record against each other anymore. 
  • If there is a way to monitor improvement, I think William definitely improved the most over recent days. His preparations and his games with Weng Chew probably helped (I personally do agree that we learn the most from long games).
  • Another reason I really enjoy games with William is because nobody else I played with played the way he does. Mainly opening choice but also a bit to do with playing style. At present, I find the opening very "technical" to play against. It's like the usual style of play I use doesn't work well at all =( But it's good. It makes my overall play experience more complete, I believe.
I really love it that everyone has levelled up. There were less attendees today as many were involved in the kickoff tournament held at Nanyang CC. I'm really happy to know many of my chess friends did well! Still, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. I definitely played more blitz games than I wanted to, and I still have some big question marks in my head while reviewing some opening lines for sure.

This was the only rapid game I recorded, between William and myself.

Personal Thoughts and Learning Points
  • Being the first over-the-board (OTB) encounter against the Colle Zukertort, I thought it was decent. I mean, where I misplayed, I pick up and learn. So I learn that I can actually go directly with ...b6 and ...Bb7 without fearing any sort of early Bb5 pin.
  • I'm glad I at least realised the problem of 12...dxc4 right after playing it.
  • This was probably the biggest miss on my part. Interestingly, I had this exact move and idea in mind. But I was too fixated over the fear of getting the Black Queen trapped after 25...Qc2 26.Rf2!, and played an inferior move.
Position after 25.Rae1. Did you find the BIG MOVE for Black here?

  • After 29.Qh6!! Qd5 30.Be4 Qxe4 31.Rxe4 Bxe4 I was genuinely waiting for 32.Qf4 to resign. But White went astray with 32.h4 .Rc2. Even then, 33.Rf1 should still be okay but after 33.Ba8?? Black has the super strong 33...Rg2+ Kh1. But unfortunately, Black was living on incremental and did not see to converting a win.
Black has a guaranteed perpetual check with seconds left on his clock (15+10 format, 10 second incremental per move). Would you play this position out as Black?


The game replay in comparison with Chessbase15's "objective" Tactical Analysis can also be found here: 


Time to face the music in office again... Sorry, thank you for your time!


Yours sincerely
Ong Yujing (Eugene)
a.k.a. newbie_learner
Siglap South CC Chess Quartet

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