QCD League 2019 Round 1: Match of the Admins!

Today marks the beginning of the 3rd season of the QCD Team Chess League for Adults 2019. I was so excited to see my chess friends, make new chess friends, as well as new teams which I served as a "Matchmaker". I'm glad to see them enjoy playing with one another as a team.

Interestingly, I was playing with Andre, a fellow administrator appointed for Brad's Singapore Chess Meetup facebook page. Hence, our personal game was depicted as "Match of the Administrators".

The game was actually quite interesting, and more importantly, I actually felt I learned something. Potentially embarrassing to share this, but I actually have a real big newbie problem of not knowing where to place my dark square Bishop in my Queen Pawn games, LOL. I have quickly replayed this 'miniature game'.

Below is the external link to the game. As per my usual style, I first attempt to replay my thoughts during the game, and what I think on my own looking back, and then run the Chessbase 15's "tactical analysis" function to identify the tactical slips.

External link to the Battle of the Admins =)


My general impressions as follows:

• The game was largely due to White being positionally outplayed than a "tactical knockout". While tactics and positioning are not divorced concepts, I genuinely felt my game was lost due to poor positional play leading to a series of inconveniences. 
• The whole idea of b3 followed by Bb2 is probably not doing anything to Black (as compared to early Qc2 or Nc3 lines) but playable for an equal position. Interestingly, early Qc2 would have assured White that the c4 pawn can be taken back, and seems to be a popular choice.
• Post-game I think I better understood what I'm supposed to do -- get the Knight on f3 away so that the Catalan Bishop on g2 can be released. If I do not like Ne5 stepping up (because my pawn formation may be crippled with lack of support (and only option to recapture on e5 is dxe5), then at least allow myself the option of Nf3-d2. 
• Move-wise the biggest mistaken was not my move of 19.h3 played with 1 second remaining, but rather 13.Qb1?! On hindsight, I could indeed try 13.Qd3 which I ruled out during the game. Because Black has no support to do Ba3. Not saying that 13.Qd3 makes White better, but that move would have not gotten into as much trouble as 13.Qb1?! 

Position after 12...Rc8. I hope you do not make the same mistake I committed, but find something else that is good (in terms of maintaining equality in the position). 

• Above all, I think I am blindly following the general guidelines in chess too much. Here, I tried to make each and every move contributing to my development in terms of speed in connecting my backrank Rooks (which signifies the end of the opening phase), but neglected the quality of my development. Specifically, I neglected piece activity. The position just went downhill from bad to worse.

That's all for my quick coverage on "Battle of the Administrators" for now. Please be generous with your comments and feedback to help newbie_learner improve!

(A separate post shall be made on the very interesting Round 1 of the QCD Team League. Will be waiting patiently for release from Andre -- he's also the official photographer of the QCD Team League!)

Yours sincerely

Ong Yujing (Eugene)

a.k.a. newbie_learner

Siglap South CC Chess Quartet

Proud Matchmaker of QCD League 2019 -- I think I should get a matchmaker norm!