Tournament in September?

K mentioned the idea of going to play an Active tournament in September. I am the new parent of a set of twins who were born in May and K has a baby on the way due in March 2011, so there is the chorus of "last chance for a long time". Critics will note that I haven't played a tournament since 2008 even with no kids. In any case, I think this will actually happen.

Which leads to the inevitable question of "What to play?" Since playing Correspondence my knowledge is deeper than it is wide, and playing my tax bracket at a rated tournament it would have to be wide. I'm toying with the idea of playing 1.g3 as White and the King's Indian and Modern as Black. It's active...not much time to refute...and I've become relatively battle hardened as these have been my blitz openings (more or less) since I read Suttle's books

i`m sure i will flip flop...if i`m playing in a section where there will be people rated lower than me, i could always play 1.e4, Sicilian. I will likely play King`s INdian v. everything else. In any case...more to come (hopefully!)

Volume 1 completed

As of today I have finished Volume 1 of the Duncan Suttles biography by Bruce Harper and Yasser Seirawan. The annotations are fabulous, the games are mindblowing...i am really enjoying it. if you are going to buy one volume, buy the first, it is more heavily annotated. Volume 2 is ECO A and Volume 3 is ECO B-E. I am going to start working on Volume 2 tomorrow likely. It's a nice combiation of Suttles' OTB games as well as his correspondence games. Here is Suttles' masterpiece

Bilek-Suttles, Venice 1974

1.c4 g6 2.g3 Bg7 3.Bg2 d6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.d3 Nh6 6.e3 Bd7 7.Nge2
Qc8 8.h3 a6 9.b3 b5 10.Rb1 Rb8 11.Bb2 f6 12.Qd2 Nf7 13.Rc1
bxc4 14.dxc4 Nb4 15.f4 c5 16.Rd1 h5 17.Nd5 Nxd5 18.Qxd5 a5
19.Qd3 Rh7 20.Bc3 a4 21.Qc2 Kf8 22.Rb1 axb3 23.axb3 f5
24.Bxg7+ Kxg7 25.Kf2 h4 26.gxh4 Rxh4 27.Ng1 Bc6 28.Rh2 e5
29.Kg3 g5 30.fxg5 Re4 31.Kf2 Qh8 32.Nf3 Nxg5 33.Nxg5 Qh4+
34.Kg1 Qxg5 35.Kh1 Qxe3 36.Rg1 Kf6 37.Qb1 Qd4 38.Qc1 Rxb3
39.Qh6+ Ke7 40.Qg7+ Kd8 0-1

problems

so against 1.d4 g6 2.e4 Bg7 i've bene playing 3.c3


Geller's system

it's worked pretty good. i'm worried there's a strong line against it, but it stunts the dark squared bishop and builds up a big center...now that i'm unofficially a 1.d4 player, it's the closest thing to a 1.e4 opening i get ;)

now here's the problem i have...it's with


Fischer's defense

to the Nimzo-Indian. The traditional 5.Bd3, 6.Nf3, 7.a3, 8.O-O etc. isn't very strong and i've been gettng my butt kicked. the strongest move is 5.Ne2 similar to the Reshevsky variation which I have played semi-successfully in the past. I may try the old Nge2, f3, e4 variation and who knows I may even try this as black, because i subscribe to the whole, if you can't beat em, join em theory of chess ;)

also i have convinced myself that after 1.d4 d5 2.e3 c5 an exchange is either a weak CK Exchange or a weak Slav Exchange depending on which pawn he takes back with (assuming 3.c3). armed with this knowledge, i may be able to go back and play 1.d4 d5 once again. stay tuned ;)

2004 in review

(to start, i am only doing this now because hopefully on saturday i will get some chess books and start devouring them. what's happened since i last wrote...i finished Chernev's Capablanca book, i played some blitz. me and kirk are going to the february Kitchener tournament and i'm likely going to barrie in january for a warm up. we've decided on 1.Nf3 and the accelerated dragon as our main weapons. i'm gonna play U2000 and he's gonna play U1600...you can play within 200 points of your rating so i'm playing up...don't like playing millions of kids. i'm likely gonna get my ass handed to me, but it's gonna be a barometer)

so now on to my best (and worst) games of 2004.

Here was one of my favorite games from last year's Kitchener tournament. I was playing in the U1700 and I was at 2-0...

C.Sadler - CT
Kitchener Winter U1700 2004
B78 - Sicilian : Dragon, Yugoslav variation

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 d6 (7...
O-O 8. Qd2 O-O 9. O-O-O Bd7 10. Bc4 Rc8 11. Bb3 a6 12. h4 = Na5 13. Bh6 Nxb3+ 14. Nxb3 Ne8 15. Bxg7 Kxg7 16. h5 Rh8 17. hxg6 fxg6 18. e5 Be6 19. Nd4 Bg8 20. Qh6+ Kf7 21. e6+ Kf6 22. Ne4+ Ke5 23. Qg5# 1-0

a fun little miniature. i lost my next game in round 4, mostly because i was hungover and then drew in round 5 to finish with 3½/5 and get some prize money.

This next one wasn't the greatest game, but i really enjoyed it. He could've improved all over the place

C.Sadler - AC
Owen Sound Summer Active (2.2) 2004
B09 - Pirc : Austrian Attack

1. f4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 g6 4. e4 Bg7 5. d4 b6 6. Bb5+ Nbd7 7. e5 dxe5 8. fxe5 Nh5 9. O-O f5 10. e6 Nhf6 11. Bg5 a6 12. exd7+ Nxd7 13. Bxd7+ Bxd7 14. Re1 Bf8
15. Nd5 h6 16. Nxe7 Bxe7 17. Rxe7+ Qxe7 18. Bxe7 Kxe7 19. Ne5 g5 20. Ng6+ 1-0

A third game was also from that tournament, vs. a visitor from Kitchener. I had improvements all over the place, but I basically led from pillar to post.

C.Sadler - TK
Owen Sound Summer Active (5.1) 2004
B06 - Modern : Pseudo-Austrian attack

1. f4 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nd7 5. Nf3 e5 6. dxe5 dxe5 7. Bc4 Ne7 8. O-O O-O 9.fxe5 Nxe5 10. Qxd8 Rxd8 11. Nxe5 Bxe5 12. Rxf7 Nc6 13. Bg5 Rd4 14. Raf1 Bf5 15. exf5 Rxc4 16. fxg6 Bd4+ 17. Kh1 hxg6 18. Rxc7 Re8 19. Nd5 Rc5 20. Nf6+ Bxf6 21. Bxf6 Rf5 22. Kg1 Rxf1+ 23. Kxf1 Rf8 24. Rg7+ Kh8 25. Rf7+ Kg8 26. Rxf8+ Kxf8 27. Ke2 Kf7 28. Bc3 Ke6 29. Kf3 b5 30. h4 b4 31. Bd2 Nd4+ 32. Ke3 Nxc2+ 33. Kd3 b3 34. axb3 Na1 35. g4 Nxb3 36. Kc3 Nc5 37. Kc4 Ne4 38. Be3 a6 39. b4 Nf6 40. Kc5 Nxg4 41. Bc1 Ne5 42. Kb6 Nd3 43. Bd2 Kf5 44. Kxa6 Kg4 45. b5 Kxh4 46. Be3 Nb4+ 47. Kb6 Nd5+ 48. Kc5
Nc7 49. b6 Na6+ 50. Kb5 Nb8 51. b7 Nd7 52. Kc6 1-0

oops gotta get ready for work

more good and bad to follow