More Results and Tactics

Lets go through a few more of my tournaments and results over the past few months. My performance at the 4NCL in 2010-11 season wasn't very good and I lost a few points of rating but my team Betsson.com at last managed to get into the Championship pool after 7 rounds in the top division. This meant that we had a theoretical possibility of winning the top division, but ended up with a much more realistic and still very good for us 5th place, which was above teams like Barbican 1 and Guildford ADC 1. The top division was won by my former team Pride & Prejudice who had GM Michael Adams on board one. 2011-12 4NCL season will start soon but during the first weekend of the tournament I will be away playing in the European Team Championship. My 4NCL team had a change of sponsor and is now called Blackthorne Russia after the name of the company which transports goods to Russia. So far I think I'm the only real Russian person registered for the team :)

In June I played in the round-robin IM-norm (not WIM!) tournament called 2nd Big Slick International, which was held at a Poker Club near London. The photo from the tournament is above, taken by my favourite chess photographer Ray Morris-Hill. As you can imagine, the tournament with two GMs in the field was quite strong for me. I lost a little rating but really enjoyed the tournament. I find it very interesting playing against stronger players. I'm sure I learnt a lot from the tournament as I did rather well in the one after that. I had a couple of interesting tactical moments in my games at Big Slick which I want to share with you.

It's black's move, what would you do? My opponent resigned but was there a better alternative? The answer is below the diagram. I was surprised to find this position published by a couple of websites like www.gingergm.com and www.chessvibes.com I guess the solution is sufficiently unusual!

M. Yurenok (2100) - S. Blackburn (1944)

2nd Big Slick International (IM), 26th June 2011

It looks like black is in deep trouble. I'm currently threatening to win the rook on e8. Black can't take on e6 because of white's Qxe6 checkmate; black can't move her rook away because of white's Re7+ winning the black queen. And if black plays Qd8 then white's Qh5+ is winning either the rook on e8 or checkmating. However, black has the unexpected:

25...Bd1! 26. Qe3 the bishop is untouchable because the rook on e6 needs protection. White also no longer has an annoying check on h5 as black bishop protects that square! White's position is still a little better because white has the better bishop, but it would take a long time to grind this one down.

Here is another interesting position but a solution is a lot simpler to see in my opinion. What move would you make for white? The solution is below the diagram.

M. Yurenok (2100) - B. Eames (2259)

2nd Big Slick International (IM), 1st July 2011

Unfortunately for me, I had only about 5 seconds left and I thought I still had to make the 40th move before the flag dropped. As it turned out, I didn't need to panic as I'd already made 40 moves and could relax and think for a few minutes if I wanted to. Nevertheless, it's probably better making one extra move than dropping the flag and finding out that you haven't made enough moves like GM Nakamura the other day at Bilbao Masters tournament. I played 41. Rxa5? Kf6! and the game ended as a draw after a few moves. There were several winning moves, but the best was:

41.Rxe3! fxe3 42. Ra8 and black can resign as he will lose the rook 42...Rxh7 43. Ra7+


In the next post I'll talk you through my performance at the British Championship in July/August, which worked out very well for me. I'd like to report my latest result to finish this post off. Last weekend I played in the Golders Green Rapidplay which was my first rapidplay in a year. I managed to do rather well and got a rating prize in the top section. I even drew with the well-known IM James Serwin. This fills me with some confidence for the forthcoming 4NCL team and individual rapidplay this weekend.

Thank You!

I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has donated to my chosen charity "Save the Children", which I'm supporting as a part of my chess challenge. With your help we've already raised £325!! And if you haven't donated yet - why not? It's for a very good cause! My donations page for "Save the Children" is here, please have a look!

I didn't do too well in the Golders Green Rapidplay, I only got 2 out of 6 but had interesting games. The problem seemed to be getting short of time and then blundering or running out of time - not a good strategy in the rapidplay! But I managed to get 1 out of 2 against the Kings Indian without knowing the theory. It's always a good fun playing something you haven't played before. Now I need to look in the book to figure out how I should have played!

My next chess game will be on Thursday for the second Hackney team. I was promised a good game as I will be on one of the top boards there. Hmmm, I wonder what sort of opening I should experiment with this time... Apart from that I'm continuing my training. This week my focus is on practicing tactics and analysing my own games. Hopefully, reading "Positional Play" by Dvoretsky and Yusupov should help me in identifying positional mistakes in my own games. I hope you agree - positional analysis of own games is the hardest thing of all because a computer can't help you with that like with the tactics!

And on Wednesday I'll have a bit of time off from chess as I'm going to see Arctic Monkeys in Wembley Arena. Now I have very high expectations after seeing Green Day a couple of weeks ago! The other great thing is I'm going to a great Indian restaurant beforehand - I love Indian food! On Friday I also went to a gig with my friend Karen. Her Canadian boyfriend bought the tickets, but had to go away on business, so I agreed to come instead of him to see a Canadian band "Tegan and Sara" which I've never heard of before. Karen too hadn't seen them live and didn't know much about them apart from that they were twins. It didn't take me too long to figure out that something was a bit odd as I got a strange feeling I was witnessing the biggest congregation of lesbians I've ever seen. I have nothing against lesbians - just felt a bit out of place, in the same way a heterosexual bloke would feel when walking into a gay bar, I guess! I wouldn't even want to imagine what lesbians feel like by living in this predominantly heterosexual world... I quickly figured that Tegan and Sara were lesbians too - hence the big following. It was interesting to observe a bit of the world I've hardly ever seen before. It makes you appreciate once again that we should not forget how diverse people are and take it into consideration even when we go about our day-to-day business.

Training

I've been so busy trying to study positional chess that I've neglected my blog! I'm currently half way through reading "Positional Play" by Dvoretsky and Yusupov. It's a brilliant book and I really recommend it. I found the chapter on prophylactic thinking especially amusing - I would have never seriously thought of some of those moves if I was playing those games myself. So, I have a lot to learn. I've also revised how to win with a king, knight and bishop against a king in under 50 moves and in time pressure - so far that position has never happened to me but it would be annoying if it happened and I couldn't win! My next chess event is the Golders Green Rapidplay on Saturday - that would be a welcome fun break from all that chess studying at home.

This week Lawrence Cooper informed me of my opponents in the London Chess Classic Women's round robin tournament starting 8th December. I wonder when the drawing of colours will happen, so that I can prepare for my opponents... I've only played a couple of them before, so this is promising to be a very interesting competition. WIM norm is expected to be about 6.5 points out of 9. Here are the entrants so far:

Susan Lalic (England) IM 2310
Arianne Caoili (Australia) WIM 2206
Arlette van Weersel (Netherlands) WIM 2193
Maria Ikonomopoulou (Greece) 2065
Maria Teresa Arnetta (Italy) 2046
Sabrina Chevannes (England) WFM 2042
Camille de Seroux (Switzerland) 1989
Maria Yurenok (England) WFM 1968
Denise Frick (South Africa) WIM 1920
+ 1 other

As you can see, Lawrence is still looking for one more participant, so if there are any FIDE-rated women reading this blog and want to participate in this tournament - get in touch with Lawrence! You can find out how to contact him from here.

The main event in the London Chess Classic Festival will be the strongest chess tournament in London for 25 years, with eight very strong GMs: Magnus Carlsen, Vldimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Nigel Short, Michael Adams, Ni Hua, Luke McShane and David Howell. I hope I'll find some time away from my own tournament to observe live games of these fantastic chess players. There are several other chess tournaments and events scheduled during 8-15th December. You can find full details on their website here.

Uxbridge Congress

It's been quiet on my blog, because I've been playing in the Uxbridge Congress Open for the last 3 days. It was very well organised and I would recommend it to anyone. I guess I also enjoyed myself because I did quite well: 3 out of 5 with 2139 FIDE rating performance and without losing any games. Plus I gained 16 rating points :) I'm especially happy that I managed to do well despite rather fast time limit for my liking: 1:30hr for the whole game plus 30 second increment after each move. It seems that playing in the rapidplay last week definitely helped me to manage my time in this tournament. Here is a photo of me taken by Sean Hewitt - the tournament organiser:

Apart from the first round which I won, all my opponents were 150-200 rating points higher than me and I drew against them all! Unfortunately, I was unable to convert my pawn advantage in two of them. In round one (Friday evening) I was relieved to win against a little boy. Those juniors can be quite dangerous and significantly under-rated. In fact, later in the tournament he performed 200 points higher than his current rating. In round two (Saturday morning) I just couldn't win in the rook ending with a pawn up. It must have been winning, but it's so hard to find the right moves playing on the increment! In the afternoon I had a headache and was tired. I was white and managed to lead a straightforward game which suited the way I felt. It was the most boring game of the whole tournament, but then I was glad to finish it in under two hours and have a couple of hours sleep before dinner.

The next day I was losing my morning game with black. My opponent played a move I haven't come across in the Slav, so that got me thinking. Later I lost a pawn in the middlegame, but managed to convert it into a rook ending which I believe was also lost. I was two pawns down at some point, but somehow managed to draw while playing on the increment. My hands were shaking for a while after the game finished - all that nervous energy and excitement had to go somewhere, right?

In the afternoon I was a bit concerned my brain wasn't working as clearly as I wanted to, because I started catching myself on missing simple tactics. So I offered a draw in what I thought was a better position for me. However, my opponent declined. But a couple of moves later he gave up a bishop for a knight and then he lost a pawn. Now I was playing for a win! Unexpectedly, my opponent turned out to have some strange compensation and the draw was agreed a few moves later. I must have misplayed it somewhere, so need to analyse the game.

This tournament once again showed that I need to learn to convert my advantage. Hmm, this subject is almost as wide as trying to learn the meaning of the universe. Here you can see the Uxbridge Congress tournament table. By the way, Golders Green Rapidplay tournament table has also just been published and my performance was 168 ECF - about what I expected. No time to rest for me, as I'm going to the Stereophonics gig tomorrow evening after work!! Looks like Tuesday evening will be taken up by sleeping to recover from all that chess and music.

Chess, Wine and Rock & Roll

The weather was absolutely terrible today, I got soaked while out for dinner with a friend. At least dinner was very entertaining - my friend told me all the latest news about her ever-changing love life. And the cheesecake was outstanding! I was out last night as well. It's quite unusual for me to be out for two evenings in the row since I decided to get better at chess. Last night I was at the residents' meeting organised at one of my neighbour's flats. I've been living in my flat for two years and still haven't met most of the neighbours in the other 17 flats. Some of you may get surprised how I managed not to meet many of my neighbours before, but I find it difficult to knock on people's doors and initiate conversations with complete strangers. On the other hand, I'm quite happy to chat with almost anyone if they approach me first. The meeting turned out to be a good laugh, maybe because there were mainly women and most of them drinking wine. I felt a bit sorry for the two guys, especially when conversation turned to a discussion about some handsome plumber who provided services to several flats. He was supposed to fix something in one of the flats the next day - I hope he got out of there alive...

I did reasonably well in the Golders Green rapidplay on Saturday and I really enjoyed the day. I always seem to do much worse in rapidplays than in slow plays because I hardly ever play in rapidplays, but I certainly intend to change that. This time I got 3 out of 6 (+2,=2,-2) in the Open section, but I'm a little unsure about my rating performance. I think I performed at roughly 165-175 ECF rating, but I will know for sure when the tournament table is published on the Golders Green rapidplay website. My last recorded ECF rapidplay rating was 133 in 2008, so I'm pleased I did much better this time. I also enjoyed chatting to several chess players and was particularly touched by a very old man who, after watching me lose a complicated first game, told me that I played very well for a girl. I couldn't help but burst out a sound of shocked laugh - I guess it's a natural reaction to what appeared to be a sexist comment, but I quickly realised he didn't mean it in that way and meant it rather as a compliment. He won me over even more when he said that he liked Russian literature like Tolstoy and Chekhov, and especially when he asked if I was a grandmaster. Very sweet :) I almost felt bad to disappoint him that I'm quite far from achieving that.

I'll wrap up with some other good news. I got tickets to see Stereophonics and Arctic Monkeys! Stereophonics is one of my favourite bands and Kelly Jones is a great singer live. Besides all the guys in the band look quite nice. I couldn't find my favourite Stereophonics song in good quality on YouTube, but here is another good one for you live: Devil I've never seen Arctic Monkeys live, but wanted to for several years. If their gig is going to be anything like what I'd seen on TV, then it will be great. Here is one of their very good songs: Brainstorm Arctic Monkeys are from Sheffield and Stereophonics are from Wales. I've been to Sheffield many times in the past year because of work and I've even grown to like Yorkshire accent. I actually like many different English accents. Scottish and London accents are probably my favourite at the moment.

Cats and Birds

It's the start of the new chess season for team competitions and I'm looking forward to catching up with friends, some of whom I haven't seen since the spring. I'm also looking forward to one of the great 4NCL traditions followed by many teams - Indian curry dinners! 4NCL is the British team league in case you don't know. I currently play for two teams: for Hackney in the top London league and for Betsson.com in the top division of 4NCL. I've also been recently invited to play in the Surrey Border and Berkshire Leagues for Sandhurst CC, but won't be able to make their September matches. I wonder if I'm taking on too much!

It's still 2.5 weeks to go before the start of my sabbatical and currently I mostly work from home. Earlier this week my work was briefly disturbed by a noisy commotion in my garden. I came outside to find that my 8.5 year old slightly overweight cat somehow managed to catch a pigeon! There were feathers flying everywhere. Not quite sure how I managed to rescue the poor pigeon and lock my cat inside. But then I became very worried that the pigeon won't be able to fly again as he kept pacing around the garden not flying anywhere. He also ignored the bread I tried to feed him. He must have been in a state of shock, but after about 10 minutes he took off. He was lucky, as I'd already found a small dead bird in my conservatory earlier in the summer...

My cat is a girl called Koozya. Russian speakers among you would be a bit surprised about this because Koozya is a male name, but I liked it! She's definitely become a bit more active since I've put her on the diet a few months ago, even though her age is now equivalent to 50 human years! She's on the diet because I don't want her to get diabetes or other serious health conditions. Here she is - my gorgeous, loving cat with murderous tendencies:

She's very good at chess too - she just throws pieces off the table early in the morning to wake me up, so that I feed her. She's a bit obsessed with food, so no wonder she's trying to supplement her dinners from outside. I know what's going to be next on her menu - she's been eyeing up the local grey squirrel for quite a while. I'd rather she kills off all spiders in the flat.

And finally, I'm playing in the Golders Green rapidplay tomorrow. I don't even have a rapidplay rating because I haven't been playing in these kind of tournaments for ages. I'll let you know how I get on in a couple of days.