Good News, Bad News: aka Bad Wiessee (final part)

THE bad news is that I lost my last-round game rather horribly, to a 2148 in 32 moves.
The good news is that the tournament will, after all, count for international ratings, or so the arbiter told me (I cannot find Bad Wiessee registered at Fide, but then again the Fide site is saying that the Jersey tournament, which finished on April 7, has still not been submitted for rating purposes).
Anyway, assuming Bad Wiessee is rated, my elo should go up 46.2pts. [Correction 7/5/18: having worked out the numbers myself, the right figure seems to be +42.8 rather than +46.2]
For those a little less rating obsessed, here is a final pic:

View from the front door of the tournament venue, the Hotel Gasthof zur Post

Middlegame or Ending? aka Bad Wiessee (part seven)

SOME positions are obviously in the middlegame and others have clearly reached the ending, but inevitably there is a grey area where arguments can be made on both sides.
I have found a useful rule-of-thumb is what I call the 13pt Rule.
I cannot recall where I first saw it, but the basic idea is this: a game has reached the ending when the points value of each side's pieces (not pawns) is under 13, using the traditional scale (ie queen-9, rook-5, bishop/knight-3).
Not everyone agrees - chess is too complicated for a strict dividing line to hold complete loyalty - but over the years I have found the 13pt Rule to be a useful guide.
Take a look at this position, which arose today in round eight.

Boris Miskevicer (2074) - Spanton (1878), after White's 17th move

Would you call this a middlegame or an ending?
Under the 13pt Rule, it is clearly the former as each player has two rooks and a bishop - exactly 13pts.
But I can well understand many people reckoning the position has all the characteristics of an ending, with the possible exception that there are six pawns aside.
Anyway, see how the game proceeded and make your own mind up.
17...Bc5 18.Re1 f6
Playable is 18...Bxf2 19.Rxe5+ Kd7, but I felt it accelerated White's development while leaving my pieces less-well coordinated.
19.f4 Kd7!?
I rejected 19...Bd6 because of 20.Be3, which forced, so I thought, 20...b6 or 20...a6. But the analysis engine Stockfish9 gives 20...Kd7!, and if 21.Bxa7, then 21...Ra8 22.fxe5 Bxe5, with compensating pressure.
20.fxe5 fxe5 21.Bh6!?
This is Stockfish9's choice. The point is that after 21.Rxe5, Black has 21...Rhe8, with lots of activity based on Black's superior development. Even so, it is far from clear that Black has full compensation for the pawn sac.
21...Rhe8 22.Re4?!
I was concerned about 22.Rf1, when 22...Rc7, 22...e4 and 22...Bf8 are all serious candidates.
The problem with the text is that White's e4-rook is rather inflexibly placed, which in turn makes his passed d5-pawn more of a weakness than a strength.
22...Kd6 23.c4?
I expected 23.Rd1, which my main analysis engines reckon is equal. The text leaves White vulnerable to, believe it or not, a middlegame king-hunt.
23...Bd4 24.Rae1 b5! 25.cxb5
Engines prefer 25.Be3, but still reckon Black is winning after the obvious 25...bxc4+.
25...Kxd5
Even more convincing is the immediate 25...Rc3+.
26.R4e2
26.Bd2 covers the c3 square, but after 26...Re6 White's queenside quickly collapses, and White is unable to muster any meaningful counterplay.
The game finished:
26...Rc3+ 27.Kb4 Rec8 28.a4 28...R8c4+ 29.Ka5 Ra3 30.Ka6 Raxa4+ 31.Kb7 Rcb4 32.Bg7 Rxb5+ 33.Kc7 33...Rc4+ 34.Kd8 Rb8+ 0-1
Meanwhile, here is a puzzle from outside of the tournament hall that I have not been able to figure out:

An impressive carving by the Tegernsee in Bad Wiessee, but is it an effeminate god or a butch goddess?

Fockenstein Ascent: aka Bad Wiessee (part six)

MY round-seven game in the International Seniors Cup at Bad Wiessee, a resort on the Tegernsee, a lake in south Bavaraia, finished before noon, so I decided today would be a good day to ascend the Fockenstein.
It is a 1,564metre mountain that can be hiked almost all the way on a well-kept forest trail, signposted with the usual southern German emphasis on usefulness, ie the distances are given in hours and minutes rather than kilometres.
The walk starts from Bad Wiessee, which, at its central point, is 740 metres above sea level. For comparison, Ben Nevis, the highest point in the British Isles, is at 1,345 metres.
It is quite a steep ascent at first, which is part of the reason why on Monday, when I started from the same point, I turned off onto Bad Wiessee's Panorama Wanderweg.
I was made of sterner stuff today, but was quite surprised when patches of snow appeared well within the first hour.

Snow on the ground in the lower Alps in April shouldn't be a shocker, but there were times later when I had to get my walking pole out and I regretted wearing ordinary trainers

Nearly all the way, the trail is wide enough for a vehicle to pass, which means it was easy to admire the scenery while not having to watch one's step.
Admittedly, the scenery consisted mostly of tall trees on either side, and all the time I was walking along a fast-flowing mountain stream full of large boulders and fallen tree trunks - evidence of past storms and dramatic weather.

A wooden sculpture, but what is it ... a boar, maybe, or a dog?

I could not make out what was represented in the above picture, but you may be able to read on the plinth that it was carved on 15.9.15.
"Wow! That's more than 100 years old," I thought, which is why I got my mobile out and took the snap.
It was only when I passed it again on the way down that I realised the second 15 more than likely referred to 2015, not 1915. I put this down to just having started reading a book on the 1565 siege of Malta - my mind is set in (relatively) ancient times.
Eventually I emerged from the trees, at Aueralm, which, at 1,299 metres, can look down, if it felt the effort worthwhile, on England's tallest mountain, Scafell Pike (978 metres).

The view on emerging from the trees at Aueralm

Although I was by no means above the tree level, it was now open going and time to don my trusty Chinese sunhat (actually, from Millets in Hastings, but made in China) and my cerise (not pink) neckerchief from Corsica.

Giant, or at least threatening, spiders are apparently a hazard at Aueralm

Frankly, if I had not planned to blog about this walk, I probably would have given up long before I reached the summit.
It was not the Aueralm arachnids that worried me, but rather that I had not done a proper walk for several months, and I had been especially foolish on this occasion by wearing ordinary trainers and white sports socks rather than walking boots, or at least walking shoes, and decent hikers' socks.
Added to that, I set off with a lunch consisting of a Bavarian cheese platter, two bread rolls, some sort of salad in mayonnaise and a large glass-jar of yogurt.
I ate everything except the yogurt fairly on in the walk, but kept the yogurt, glass container and all, for when I reached the summit. The flavour was stracciatella - my favourite, at the moment - but I should have made do with a couple of other flavours in smaller, but above all plastic, pots.

The snow above Aueralm had a striking pattern

One problem with using a mobile phone to take pix is that, even more than with a normal camera, it flattens perspective.
You will just have to take my word for it that the final push to the summit of Fockenstein was quite a challenge - even more so coming down, which I did largely on my bottom.

This was almost vertical ... honest!

The view from the top was spectacular, even though vertigo meant I could not fully enjoy looking back to where I had begun at Bad Wiessee and the Tegernsee lake.

A cross at the top of Fockenstein, with the Tegernsee just visible in the background

Oh, and just in case anyone thinks I have downloaded these images from the internet, here I am at the summit, trying to show I have no fear of heights.

At the top of the Fockenstien (hat by Millets, shirt by Primark)

PS My chess game, which I won unexpectedly quickly in 26 moves, was against a 2075 - just my luck that the tournament does not count for international ratings (as the good book says, "All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils?")

Bad Wiessee (part five)

DESPITE being on +1, I found myself paired in round six against a player with a Fide more than 200pts below mine.
It should not surprise any reader of this blog to learn I was completely lost - two pawns down, no compensation - in the late opening.
In desperation, I sacked a piece, winning my pawns back and getting vague attacking chances. For much of the rest of the game I was the equivalent of more than a rook down, according to Stockfish9, but my opponent chose several inferior moves and I eventually won an ending on move 51.
The weather turned miserable in Bad Wiessee overnight, and continued unseasonably cold, and rather wet, for much of today.
I guess this is as good a time as any to publish this:

SA leader Ernst Röhm was arrested here at Bad Wiessee's Hanselbauer Hotel - later renamed Lederer am See, and now largely derelict - on the Night of the Long Knives in 1934

Bad Wiessee (part four)

Spanton (1878) - Ludwig Wawrinsky (1771), International Seniors' Cup, Round 5
1.e4 e6 2.d4 b6
This might be an OK surprise-weapon, but in the age of databases it has to stand on its intrinsic merits.
3.Bd3 Bb7 4.Nf3
Having said that, one advantage of systems like this for Black is that Black will almost certainly have much more experience than White of the resulting positions,
I had done some prep, but LW's next move was not one that I knew he had played before; then again, it is hardly a game changer.
4...h6
I was surprised to discover from ChessBase's 2018 Mega database that both Kasparov and Short have had this position (as White, naturally).

White to play in a position that has faced both Kasparov and Short

There are 101 games with this position in Mega'18.
5.Nc3
Most popular, occurring in 53 games, is Nigel Short's 5.0-0.
Garry Kasparov's choice of 5.c4 is third most-popular, occurring in eight games.
The text occurs in just four games, but White has massive percentage scores from all three moves.
5...Bb4 6.Bd2 Nf6 7.Qe2 a5?!
I thought this might be to dissuade me from castling queenside, although I was far from sure Black needed to be worried about such a possibility.
8.0-0 Ba6
But I guess the reason for White's seventh was that LW was planning to exchange light-square bishops.
9.Rad1 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 0-0 11.e5 Nh7 12.Rfe1
LW now came up with a move that I do not think would have crossed my mind in a proverbial month of Sundays.

Black to play a move that, while tactically not unsound, is a positional shocker

12...c6?
The game finished:
13.Ne4 f5 14.exf6 Nxf6 15.Ne5 Bxd2 16.Rxd2 Nxe4 17.Rxe4 Qf6 18.Qg3 Kh7 19.Rd3 d6 20.Rf3 Qe7 21.Rxf8 dxe5 22.Qf3 Qb7 23.Rxe5 Nd7 24.Qe4+ g6 25.Rf7+ 1-0
With the game over before noon, I set off for a walk around the lake of Tegernsee beyond Rottach-Egern and on to the town of Tegernsee.

Schloss Tegernsee

It was easy to spot Schloss Tegernsee (English: Tegernsee Castle) as I walked around the lake, and I assumed the building must be modern as even from a distance one can see it was not built primarily for defence.
In fact, it was begun in the eighth century as an abbey, and has been much modified over the centuries. It was secularised in 1803, became a brewery for a short time, and in 1817, according to Wikipedia, was bought by the King of Bavaria. The abbey passed into the hands of a side branch of the ruling Wittelsbach family - Bavaria is dotted with Cafes Wittlesbach and Hotels Wittelsbach - and was renamed Schloss Tegernsee.
The current owner is the 81-year-old Prince Max, who is head of Bavaria's now-former royal family and is also, if you believe in the Jacobites' King Over The Water, the rightful monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Bad Wiessee (part three)

THE top seed, German FM Gottfried Schumacher, was my fourth-round opponent, and there was a surprise awaiting me as early as move four.
Schumacher (2283) - Spanton (1878)
1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4
GS spent more than 25 minutes on his next move, explaining after the game that he had not previously come across 3...Nxe4.
4.Bxf7+?!
I assumed 'everyone' played 4.Qh5, but the text has been tried by 2400+ players and was used by Hua Ni (2587) to beat Yevgeniy Vladimirov (2621) at the 2004 Fide world championship knockout.
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Qf3+?!
This is tempting, and was played (unsuccessfully) in the 1890s by Mason and Mieses, but is probably just bad.
It looks as if White has to drop his queen's knight back to g3 or c3, when Black has time to castle by hand, eg ...Be7, ...Rf8 and ...Kg8, after which his bishop-pair and lovely centre must give him the edge.
6...Kg8 7.Ng5 Qd7
Not 7...Qxg5?? because of 8.Qxd5 and mates.
8.d4 e4 9.Qb3

Black to play his ninth move

9...Nc6
This is OK, but simpler and better was 9...h6. I rejected it because of 10.Nxe4, missing that after 10...Qe6 11.f3, Black can capture the knight straight away because his queen on e6 is protected by the c8 bishop.
10.Ne2 Na5 11.Qc3 Nc4??
I had originally intended 11...Nc6, the point of the manoeuvre being to break the pin on the d5 pawn. Instead I have set up my opponent with the same simple combination as was my undoing in a game earlier this month at St Albans.
12.Nxe4
I have quickly gone from being much better to  much worse, and I did indeed pay the full price for my weak play (1-0, 59 moves).

Bad Wiessee (part two)

AFTER yesterday's game, I walked round part of the Tegernsee lake to Rottach-Egern.

The church of St Laurentius is an obvious landmark while approaching Rottach-Egern along the lake-shore

As is common in Bavaria (and neighbouring Switzerland), footpath distances are usually given in hours and minutes rather than kilometres.
You soon work out how your walking pace compares with the 'official' one, and adjust accordingly. Bad Wiessee to Rottach-Egern, for example, is given as two hours, but proved considerably shorter for me (at least, it did on the way back, when I knew the direct route).
My round-three game today was against a player from the Kaiserslautern district of Rhineland-Palatinate. He had a Fide of 1824 but a German elo of 1634. I suspect the latter is more accurate - I won in 20 moves.
That gave me time to go for a slightly more ambitious walk before lunch, along Bad Wiessee's Panorama Wanderweg.
The name is a bit of a cheat as for most of the walk any view is obscured by tall pines, which help give a complete silence broken only by the occasional bird chirruping.
This was a great pleasure by itself, but I was eventually rewarded with a panoramic view.

My mobile-phone camera does not do justice to the view of Bad Wiessee from the town's Panorama Wanderweg

Bad Wiessee

AM playing in a new tournament for me - the seventh International Seniors' Cup in the spa town of Bad Wiessee on Lake Tegernsee.
I am seeded 44th out of 131 competitors, and got off to an expected start, beating a 1577 in round one and losing to a 2064 in round two.
Bad Wiessee proved easy to get to - plane from Heathrow to Munich, train from the airport to Gmund (Tegernsee) with a single change, and a bus that was waiting when the train pulled in.

The tournament is hosted in the centre of town by the Hotel Gasthof zur Post

With the exception of round one, all games start at 10am. I am not sure how I will take this over the coming days, but it makes an interesting change from the typical early-afternoon starts of north Europe and the late-afternoon/early-evening starts of the Mediterranean.
Certainly, the playing hall is spacious, and the hotel has opened a dedicated bar serving (non-alcoholic) cold and hot drinks.

The playing hall before Saturday's first round

Scoring 0%

PLAYED at St Albans over the weekend, losing all three of my games on Saturday in the U181 (against players graded 180, 158 and 145).
I cannot remember ever losing three (non-rapid) games in one day before.
The playing conditions were certainly no excuse as the tournament hall was spacious, despite hosting five sections, and the facilities, including catering, plenty of toilets and even a bookstall (courtesy of Chess & Bridge), were also good.
The only knock on the venue is its isolation, a long way from any shops and even further from the mainline rail station, but all in all it is definitely a tournament I would be happy to go back to.
To be fair, I did do a little better today, drawing with a 169 and beating a 106 for an overall grading performance of 135.

Scoring 100%

ONE of the funny things about chess is that there are some openings I enjoy playing against, but when I come to check my results, I find they are nowhere near as good as I fondly imagine.
Conversely, there are other openings I feel uncomfortable against, but my results are surprisingly good.
I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way.
Last night was a good example, when I played on top board for Battersea 3 against London Deaf in division two of the Central London League.

Spanton (163) - Neil Dunlop (161)
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6

Black's queen is more centrally placed than after the other common third moves,  ...Qa5 and ...Qd8, but also more prone to harassment by White's minor pieces

Sergei Tiviakov helped popularise 3...Qd6, although the move goes back at least to 1968 - five years before he was born.
4.d4 Nf6
One of my games saw 4...Nc6?, a move that has been chosen by at least two 2500+ players. Black is already in serious trouble after the reply 5.Nb5.
5.Nf3 c6 6.g3
The main line goes 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nc4 Qc7 8.Qf3, with an initiative.
6...Bf5 7.Bg2 h6
Black prepares a retreat for the bishop, which suggests White should seriously consider pre-empting this with 7.Nh4!?
8.0-0 e6 9.Re1 Be7 10.Bf4 Qd8
So Black's queen ends up on d8 anyway.
More active was the double-edged 10...Qb4!?
11.Qe2 0-0 12.Rad1

White has a huge lead in development after 12.Rad1

White has more space and has developed all his pieces to active squares, while Black has yet to get his queen, queen's knight and rooks into play.
Despite this, my main analysis engines reckon the position is equal; Stockfish9 even minutely prefers Black.
Older (for which, read weaker) engines are more sympathetic to White's set-up. Crafty19 and Fritz5.32, for example, give White a tiny edge.
I guess the point is that Black has no weaknesses and will be able to complete development without making positional concessions.
Nevertheless, I think White's position is easier to play, and the game seemed to bear that out (1-0, 56 moves).
Checking the opening today, I see I have scored +4=0-0 against 3...Qd6, +2=0-0 against 3...Qd8, and a non-perfect, but still respectable, +8=7-3 (64%) against 3...Qa5.
And yet I know I have felt uncomfortable facing the Scandinavian, hence why I have sometimes met 1.e4 d5 with 2.d4 (scoring +2=0-1).
As the great Greavsie was wont to say about another pastime: "It's a funny old game."

Evans Above

I MESSED up an excellent position against the Evans Gambit when playing for Battersea last night.

James Stevenson (172) - Spanton (163), London League 3 (Battersea 2 v Hammersmith)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 d6!?

Black has played 6...d6!? instead of the much more common 6...exd4

Easily most popular is 6...exd4, but the text has been played by Adolf Anderssen, Anand and Caruana.
7.0-0
7.dxe5 was played in Alan Spice (155) - Spanton (151), Highbury (rapid) 1990. After 7...dxe5 8.Qb3 Qe7 9.Ba3 Qf6 10.0-0 Bb6, White has some compensation for his pawn sac, but Black has no weaknesses and both Stockfish9 and Komodo9 prefer Black. I did eventually win the game in a time scramble.
The main line in ChessBase's 2018 Mega database runs 7.Qb3 Qd7 8.dxe5 Bb6. The most recent game in the database between two 2400+ players continued: 9.Bb5 (correspondence master Tim Harding's recommendation in the revised second edition of Evans Gambit And A System Vs. Two Knights' Defense [punctuation is Chess Digest's]) Nge7 10.0-0 0-0 with an unclear but approximately level position in Bogdan Belyakov (2487) Jure Borisek (2561), World Blitz Championship 2016 (1/2-1/2, 62 moves).
7...Nf6 8.Qb3?!
Qd1-b3 is a common move in the Evans, but here it may be a mistake.
Perhaps White should settle for winning his pawn back by 8.dxe5 dxe5 (8...Nxe5!? is also possible) 9.Qxd8+ Nxd8 10.Nxe5, although Black is comfortable after 10...0-0 or 10...Be6.
It's important to realise that 8.Qa4 is well-met by 8...Nd7.
8...0-0 9.dxe5 Nxe5?
As JS suggested afterwards, I should have played 9...Nxe4, which my analysis engines consider to be nearly winning.
Instead, the game continued:
10.Nxe5 dxe5 11.Ba3
Black is losing the exchange. There is serious compensation, but I mishandled the position and lost without putting up any decent resistance (1-0, 33 moves).

Symmetrical Chess

THIS near-symmetrical position arose after 11 moves of my last-round game at Jersey.


Position after 11...Bc5! in Spanton (1851) - Krzyzstov Belzo (2103), Jersey round nine

Here are the moves that got us there:
1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3
Easily the most popular move in ChessBase's 2018 Mega database. But also represented by examples in their thousands are 3.g3 and 3.d4.
3...d5 4.d4 
Hugely more popular is 4.cxd5, when the main line involves Black setting up a Maroczy Bind by 4...Nxd5 5.g3 Nc6 6.Bg2 Nc7 7.0-0 e5, with a position that has featured Karpov, Kramnik, Smyslov and Topalov as White, while Black's resources have been championed by Botvinnik, Fine, Reshevsky and Kasparov.
4...cxd4 5.Nxd4?!
This is disliked by my analysis engines, and scores very poorly in Mega18. Usual is 5.Nxd5.
5...Nc6?! 
Stockfish9 reckons Black is almost winning after the aggressive 5...e5.
6.cxd5 Nxd5 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.e4 
8.Bd2 is the main move.
8...Nxc3 9.Qxd8+ Kxd8 10.bxc3 e5 11.Bc4 Bc5!
Reaching the diagram. Seven games arrived at this position in Mega18, and each was drawn.
My game continued:
12.0-0?!
This is probably too conservative. The king should not be in danger if it took up the more centralised e2 square.
12...Ke7 13.Rb1 Bd7 14.Bd2 Rab8 15.Rb3 Be6 16.Bxe6 Kxe6 17.Rfb1 Rxb3 18.axb3 Rd8 19.Be1
Black's pieces are more active than White's, but he has more pawn islands (1/2-1/2, 49 moves).

Albin Antics

Glyn Pugh (1847) - Spanton (1851), Jersey round eight
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.g3 Nge7
Russian GM Alexander Morozevich is credited with making this move popular, his idea being to round up the e5 pawn, but it was played as long ago as 1905 by Austria's Carl Schlecter.
6.Bg2 Ng6 7.0-0 Bf5?
Overwhelmingly most popular is 7...Ngxe5, but the text has been the choice of at least one 2300+ player.
8.e3
Nevertheless, 7...Bf5? is definitely a mistake, as is shown by the reply in my game, and by 8.Qb3, one point being that 8...Qd7 fails to 9.Qxb7 Rb8 10.Nxd4!
8...d3 9.Nc3
9.Qb3 was still strong, but the text is natural and is not bad.
9...Qd7

Position after 9...Qd7

10.e4?I'd planned to meet 10.Nd4 with 10...Nxd4 11.exd4 Qxd4, but White has several good continuations, including the obvious 12.Bxb7.
10...Bg4 11.Qe1?The position has suddenly become tricky for White. Maybe he should have got on with development by playing 11.Be3, but Black has promising compensation after 11...h5, a kingside attack being one of the main ideas of a quick ...Bf5 and ...Qd7.11...Ngxe5Stockfish9 much prefers 11...Bxf3 12.Bxf3 Ncxe5.12.Nd2??12.Nxe5 is unclear, but after the text, Black is winning.12...Nd4 13.f3 Bc5 14.Kh1 Nc2 15.Qd1 Ne3 0-1 (25 moves).

Pretty - But Flawed - Finish

MY round seven game at Jersey had a pretty-looking conclusion.

Black has just played 26...Qb4xb2 in Spanton (1851) - Nigel Livesey (1753)

The game finished 27.Rh5 Kg7 28.Rxh6 Kxh6 29.Qh3+ Kg5 30.Nxh7#.
In fact, my 27th was a mistake - I should have preferred 27.Re2, and if, say, 27...Qb4, then 28.Qh3 wins.
So, the question is, how could Black have saved himself after the move in the game, 27.Rh5?
Analysis engines have no trouble finding 27...Rd6! The point is that 28.Rxh6 is met by 28...Rxf6, when 29.Rxf6 runs into 29...Qc1+, picking up the rook on h6.

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

IF one lazy move cost me the game in Jersey round five, it was a series of endgame mistakes that turned a win into a loss in round six.

We reached this ending after just 22 moves in Alek Safarian (2020) - Spanton (1851)

Black is a pawn up and has a 3-1 farside majority.
But after 23.Rd7 it is clear White has the more active rook and king. Even so, Black should win with careful play.
However, AS soon felt justified in offering a draw.

White offered a draw after playing 32.Ke1-f1

Black is still better, but not by as much as I felt in the game. Indeed, I now think the position is almost certainly drawn.
I could find no way to get my king safely over to help promote my a pawn, so I eventually gave up the pawn to win White's h pawn, thinking my passed h pawn would give me an edge.
But soon the position was dead drawn - except that it was easier for White to find good moves.

Black has just played 41...Rb3-b6

The game finished:
42.f5 gxf5+
This is OK, but an even simpler draw is to be had by 42...h5+ 43.Kg5 gxf5.
43.Kxf5 h5 44.Kg5 Rh6? 
The simplest way to draw is 44...h4! 45.Kxh4 Kg6 eg 46.Kg4 f6 47.f4 fxe5 48.fxe5 Rb4+ 49.Kf3 Kf5.
45.f4 h4??
Black seems to be still drawing after 45...Rg6+ 46.Kxh5 Rg1 eg 47.f5 Rh1+ 48.Kg5 Rg1+ 49.Kf4 Rf1+ 50.Ke4 Re1+ 51.Kd5 Rf1 52.f6+ Kg6, as there seems to be no way White can make progress, eg 53.Ra3 Rb1 54.Rg3+ Kf5 (analysis with Komodo9 and Stockfish9).
46.f5
Black is completely busted.
The remaining moves were:
46...h3 47.f6+ Kh7 48.Rxf7+ Kg8 49.Rg7+ Kf8 50.e6 h2 18mins less 51.e7+ Ke8 52.Rg8+ Kd7 53.e8Q+ Kd6 54.Qe7+ Kc6 55.Rc8+ 1-0

Natural, or Lazy?

MY round five game at Jersey was heading for a draw until I played a "natural" move in the following position. Can you work out what it was, and why it lost material?

Black has just played 31...Ba6-c8 in Spanton (1851) - Richard Bryant (1932)

I lazily played 32.Ke2? (32.Kd3? is just as bad), losing a pawn, and eventually the game, after 32...Bf4.
Correct was 32.g3, after which neither player can realistically make progress.

Win, Lose or Draw?

IT is Black to move in this position from round four at Jersey. With best play, should Black win, lose or draw?

White has just played 43.Nh5-g7+ in Spanton (1851) - Sheila Jackson (2108)

The game saw:
43...Kg6 44.Ne6
Forced.
44...Kxf7
Forced.
45.Nxg5+
Forced.
45...Kg6
45...Kf6 46.Ne4+ Ke6 47.Nxd6 Kxd6 48.Ke3 is a drawn pawn ending.
46.Ne4 Bf8 47.a4 bxa4 48.Nd2
... and the game was drawn.

 43...Kf6?? loses trivially to 44.Ne8+.

43...Ke4?? also loses to 44.Ne8, eg 44...Be7 45.Nf6+ Kf5 46.Nd7 etc.
But 44.Ne6? seems to only draw after 44...g4 eg 45.f8Q Bxf8 46.Nxf8 g3 47.Ne6 g2 48.Ng5+ Kf4 49.Nf3 Ke4 50.Nd2+ Kf4 51.Kf2 a4 52.Kxg2 Ke3 53.Nf1+ (other moves lose) Kd3 54.Kf2 Kc2 55.Ke2 Kxb2 56.Kd2 Kxa3 57.Kc2 b4 58.Nd2 Ka2 (if 58...b3+ then 59.Kb1 b2 60.Nxc4+ Kb3 61.Nxb2 a3 62.Nd1 a2+ 63.Ka1=) 59.Nxc4 b3+ 60.Kc1 a3 61.Nd2 b2+ 62.Kc2 Ka1 63.Nb3+ Ka2 64.Nd2 c4 65.Nb1 Ka1 66.Nxa3 Ka2 67.Nb1 Ka1.

Black seems to be winning after my analysis engines' suggestion of 43...Ke5!
The main line runs 44.Kf3 Bf8 45.Nh5 Be7 46.Kg4 Ke6 47.Ng3 Kxf7.
Or 44.Ne8 Be7 45.Kf3 b4 46.Kg4 Ke6 47.Nc7+ Kxf7 48.Nd5 bxc3 49.bxc3 Bd8 50.Kf5 Kg7 51.Ne3 Kh6 52.Nxc4 Kh5 53.Ne5 Bc7 54.Nd7 c4 55.a4 Kh4 56.Nf6 Bd6 57.Ng4 Bf4 58.Nf6 Bc1 59.Ng4 Bf4 60.Nf6 Bd2 61.Ne4 Bc1 62.Nf2 Bb2.

So the answer to the question seems to be: Black should win (with the caveat that one of the winning lines is rather long, so there may be mistakes in analysis).

Oppo Bishops In The Middlegame

IN round three at Jersey, I again had opposite-coloured bishops, but this time in a late middlegame.

White offered a draw after giving check in Aditya Verma (2002) - Spanton (1851)

27...Kh8 28.Bb3 Bxb4?
Clearly better is 28...Nxb4, even though, after 29.Bxf7, White gets an outpost for the bishop at e6, eg 29...Bc5 30.Be6 Rd1+ 31.Rxd1 Rxd1+ 32.Kh2 Rd8. Black has a dangerous passed pawn, and a target at f2, but thanks to a pair of rooks having come off, Black's king is not in serious danger. 29.Ra6 Nd4 30.Nxd4 exd4 3mins more 31.Rxf6 Bc3 32.Rh6 
Probably best.
The trouble with 32.Rxf7 is that after 32...Rxf7 33.Bxf7 d3, White is a pawn up but Black's passers are quicker. eg 34.Bb3 d2 35.Bd1 Re8 36.Kh2 b4 with the better chances.
32...d3??  3.f6
White threatens to mate, and Black can only avoid it by swopping off into a probably-lost ending.
33...Bxf6 34.Rxf6 d2 35.Kh2 d1Q 36.Bxd1 Rxd1 37.Rxf7 (1-0, 44moves).

Oppo Bishops Case Study

OPPOSITE-coloured bishops are notoriously drawish in endings (but not in middlegames).
Sometimes it is possible to hold such an endgame when two pawns down.
At other times, however, even equal pawns do not guarantee a draw.
Often the best way to win such an endgame is to create a passed pawn on each wing, even if that allows the opponent a passer, or passers, elsewhere.

Position after 36 moves in Spanton (1851) - Glenn House (2188), Jersey round two

Material is equal - in numbers, that is, not in quality.
Black's bishop is much more active than White's, and his king is more central. My b2 pawn is en prise and my g5 pawn is vulnerable to ...Bf4, when Black would be simultaneously protecting his e3 passer and tying my rook down.
The only way to free the rook would be to play h2-h4, but then the h pawn would be a new weakness.
I decided my best chance was to activate my rook on the open file, and so played ...
37.Be2 Rd8!?
My analysis engines slightly prefer 37...h4, but the text is their second choice.
38.Rd1 Rxd1+!? 39.Bxd1 Bxb2
Black has won a pawn and left me with two isolated queenside pawns, but I felt I had some reasonable drawing chances.
40.f4 
Activating the king with 40.Kg2 is met by 40...Be5, when ...Bf4 will force White to give up the g5 pawn or play h4, when the king would be tied to the kingside.
40...e2! 41.Bxe2 Bc1 42.f5 Bxg5 43.fxg6 fxg6
Black is 'only' one pawn up, but he has chances to create a passer on both flanks, and White has four isolanis. The game continued ...
44.Kg2 Kf6 45.Kf3 Ke5 46.Bd3 Bc1 47.h3 g5 48.a4 Ba3 49.Ke3 Bc5+ 50.Kd2 Kf4 11mins less 51.Be2 g4 52.hxg4 hxg4
One passer created.
53.Ke1 g3 54.Kf1 Kxe4 55.Kg2 Bd6 56.Bf1 Ke3 57.Kh3 Kd2 58.c5 Bc7 59.Kg2 Kc3 60.Be2 Kb4
I finally resigned.
Doubtless neither of us played perfectly, but I suspect this was an opposite-coloured bishop ending that could not be held.

Lucky Escape

IN round one of this year's Jersey Open, I was under the cosh for most of the game.

Position after 34...Kh8-h7 in Kim Le Quang (FM2267) - Spanton (1851)

Black's pawn weaknesses (e5, b6) mean White is more-or-less positionally winning after the precautionary 35.Be2 or, even better according to analysis engines, 35.Nf2.
Instead, KLQ jumped in with 35.Nf6+? After 35...Bxf6 36.Bxf6 Qxd3, he had no choice but to accept the perpetual that comes with 37.Qf8 Qxe3+ 38.Kg2 Qd2+ etc.