See the previous post for background and first few games.
One thing I noticed about central Wellington is that nowhere at all does a show sell any sort of can or bottle of soft-drink for less than $2.50 , I suspect it’s some sort of cartel of shopkeepers agreeing not to compete on the price. Anyway back to the chess..
Game 5 – White vs Lawrence Farrington ( 1603 ) – French – advance variation
Looking at this later I was probably a bit better off during the game than I thought I was at the time. I got a little tied up on the Queen side and black play c4, Bd7 and threat of Nb3. I spent a bit of time shuffling around pieces to deal with that and in the meantime black attacked on the Kingside. After some swaps of material he tried a king side rook attack but after a moved my king over and we swapped down to a King, Rook and 7 pawns each we agreed on a draw since his king side attack was stuck. However looking at it in the computer it looks like I could have started a Quuenside push which would have been very hard to stop. Still I was happy with the result at the time especially against a stronger player.
Game 6 – White vs Simon Ward ( 1717 ) – Sicilian Alapin with 2 ..d5
This was one of the first times I’ve played this opening in a competitive game and I managed to follow the right moves until a deviated on move eight. I was fairly even after a few swaps ( 2R+B+N+6P each ) but then wasted some time trying a king side attack with a rook along the 5th rank. There was then a bit of heavy manoeuvring in the centre with my opponent getting ahead and me into trouble. before things swung a bit my way and things were probably a draw with scatted pawns and a minor piece each. However I looked at my clock and it had run out ( either I forgot to press it or it hadn’t registered the press) and I had lost. I was pretty disappointed since I almost certainly had a draw against a higher rated opponent.
That night ( Easter Sunday) we went to a little middle-eastern sort of place. Nice enough but a bit short of menu options due to the weekend. We also had a coffee and cake afterwards.
Game 7 was a 1 point bye for me which put me on 3 points ( 2 draws, 1 win , 1 bye and 3 losses )
Game 8 – Black against Bill Forster ( 1953 ) – Petrov 3 Nights
My opponent played a weak move in the opening but I didn’t really take advantage of it and things were fairly even until I got a pawn up around move 13 and then picked up another fending off a queenside attack although I missed a move at the end which would have left me another pawn better. After a few swaps we each had 3 pawns on the king side plus a rook and I had a extra “b” pawn. However I blundered and let my opponent take a couple of my pawns for nothing. I was pretty lost when my opponent totally blundered and gave me a rook for nothing! and then resigned a few moves later.
So overall in my 7 actually games I got 3 points against an average strength of 1788 and played to a rating of 1731 or 457 points above my actual rating. I definitely had a bit of luck in the last game though. My 4 points for the tournament but me in the middle of the field at 14-equal and half a point behind the “C grade” winners.
Overall I was fairly happen with my tournament. I still have lots of room to improve in several aspects of my game but being able to play okay games against 1600-1900 players shows that getting to that sort of rating is not beyond my grasp.
As far as the tournament itself I liked the venue but can’t say I was too impressed with the organisation at times. The full official results still don’t appear to be up but I did a little post to the Auckland Chess Centre website summarising the results of the ACC players.
