Thursday 28 January 2010

Puzzle and News

Well, I'm now booked to play in two Open tournaments: Reykjavik in Iceland towards the end of February and Bangkok in Thailand in April! It's great as I've never been to Iceland. And even though I've been to Thailand 3 years ago, I am also really looking forward to it because it will be a lot hotter than wintry England! IM Simon Ansell is also going and we will stay for a few extra days in each country to look around and explore.

I played a game on Tuesday for the 2nd Hackney team in the London League. I was actually playing on the first board, which is quite unusual for a woman! But I lost... I thought I was doing quite well, I played as white against the Queen's Indian for the first time. I seemed to get a good position out of the opening despite not knowing almost any theory on this opening. However, I blundered a pawn in the time-trouble and it was the end of it, especially since my opponent was playing quite fast and had a lot more time. He didn't have ECF rating, but his FIDE converted to ECF was about 193, so quite strong for me. The match is still on-going as one game was adjourned (yes! adjournments still happen in England!!!) with an extra pawn in the rook ending on my team's side. If we win that game we would draw the match, so it's a very important game. However, rook endings are notoriously hard to win.

This weekend I'm playing in a local London tournament in Barnet, not FIDE-rated. I thought I might as well get some practice since Barnet is fairly close to where I live. I will play two games on each of two days, so it's quite intense but good practice for clock handling before more serious Uxbridge all-play-all tournament in mid-February. And on Monday I'll be playing in the London League again, this time for the 1st Hackney team.

Here is a fairly simple puzzle for you from one of my games in Hastings, black to move. Can you find the winning continuation? Let me know if you can and I will post the solution in a couple of weeks.

G. Moore (1902) - M. Yurenok (1968)
3 January 2010, Hastings



Finally, I've had a training session with my new GM coach Chris Ward on Tuesday and it went well. I will be an expert in 1.d4 openings in no time, so watch out!!

5 comments:

Alberto Santini said...

Enjoy your training sessions with GM coach Chris Ward! :)

There is an interesting book written by GM Viktor Moskalenko, "Revolutionize your chess". It seem quite oriented to middlegame positions arisen by 1.d4 openings, you know, Isolated Pawn and Botvinnik system.

P.S. I sent you an email about the solution of puzzle. :)

Badi said...

Taking the knight on g3, then the e4 pawn, maybe? (with that knight threatening a fork at e2)

Maria Yurenok said...

Hi Alberto, thanks! I have so many books and so little time to read them! But I will have a look at the book you've suggested when I find some time. And thanks for the solution.

Badi, thanks for your solution too. I will post the answer in a few days.

Anonymous said...

Maria, could you wirite how do you evaluate a chess position?

Maria Yurenok said...

Ok, I'll try to explore that complicated topic in my next post.