Friday, January 27, 2006

Tomkovich - Goeller, KCC Championship 2006


diagram

Black to play and win a pawn.
Hint: think "zwichenzug."

Chess can be difficult and disappointing. Last night, I felt self-satisfied after playing what I thought was a rather nice attack against Greg Tomkovich in the 2006 Kenilworth Chess Club Championship, only to have Fritz show me this morning all of the things that we missed. In the diagram above, I closed up the game with 17...f4!? when Fritz tells me I could have won at least a pawn by force -- so long as I could see the zwichenzug! I looked at the move it recommends, but I just did not look hard enough I guess.

At least I wasn't the only one to play less than perfect chess. NM Scott Massey barely got away with a flawed Queen sac in his game with John Moldovan. And Joe Demetrick let an endgame edge turn into a loss against Ed Selling. There are no perfect games. But occasionally we string together a series of perfect moves (as I did in the final combination of my game), and perhaps that should be enough to satisfy us.

More games from Round 3 of the tournament should be up by Monday.

No comments: