There was a slight delay due to problems at the replicator but the first batch of DVDs have already been sent out. We await to hear your reviews!

To be opposite

1. To be in contention or conflict with: oppose the enemy force.

2. To be resistant to: opposes new ideas.

3. To place opposite in contrast or counterbalance.

4. To place so as to be opposite something else.

To act or be in opposition.

A quick post, but this is the scenario:

Last night I had a bet with GM Keith Arkell, the bet is…

I bet £10 that he wont sacrifice a piece tomorrow morning (10am game)

If he loses all bets are void, if he draws or wins and sacrifices a piece then he wins £10!!!

No sacrifice, I win £10!

Time to rock and roll!!!!!!! Lets unleash the inner Keith, a crazy hacking genius, who can take anyone out in tactics. Now you may think that I ‘am taking the ‘Mickey’ here but  Keith can play all sorts of positions. If you’re in doubt then search out his game against Hodgson at the Surrey Easter tournament. Anyway, only time will tell!

PS this post is only going up at 9.55am Sunday morning so that his opponent does not smell a rat!!

http://www.e2e4.org.uk/international/2010/Uxbridge_Aug/index.htm

For Details!

“What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.” *

So recently I returned from a trip to the USA where, amongst other things, I:

• failed to cash in the World Series of Poker Main Event
• saw Snoop Dogg perform only yards away at a private party
• nearly angrily took out a GM with the Killer Dutch in a crucial last round game of chess

Rock and Roll.

*So says Raoul Duke in Hunter S. Thompson’s classic novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I’ve never been to Las Vegas before and I’m not sure I particularly want to go back for any great length of time. They’re soulless and in many ways depressing, these casinos. There’s nothing else to do but gamble, once you’ve seen a few shows.

Having said that, I did have a good time! I was there to play the Main Event of the World Series of Poker, having qualified by virtue of making Supernova Elite on Pokerstars last year.

Pokerstars hospitality was fantastic: we were put up in a suite at the top of Palms Place that was roughly twice the size of my old flat. Two 42” plasma TV screens? Check. Jacuzzi in the bedroom? Check. Two bathrooms? Check. Walk-in shower (three shower heads) big enough for five? Check. You get the idea.

Then there was Snoop Dogg at the Pokerstars party. There he is, on the right, in a Spain shirt. It was the day of the Soccer World Championship Finals, whatever they are?

Penn and Teller were good too.

I busted the Main Event about ten minutes before the end of Day 2A.

The first day had gone pretty well, I’d chipped up to 45.5k (starting stack was 30k) without any major drama or excitement. I check-raised a low flop against a young internet qualifier, turned the second nut flush then check-raised him again. He tanked and folded. The very next orbit I flopped a full house against the same player’s early position open, raised his continuation bet and he immediately shoved all-in with his flush draw, drawing dead but to a runner-runner straight flush. That was about it.

The second day I back-raised a shortstacked Marcel Lüske (‘The Flying Dutchman’. Trademark – wearing sunglasses upside-down Upside-down? What? Why?) and beat his ace-queen with my pair of tens early on.

Nothing much happened after that, until about ten minutes before the end. I had 60k with blinds of 500/1000/100 and opened ace-queen suited on the button to 2.5k. The very active, aggressive, drunk, irritating, young, fidgety and bad player in the small blind re-raised to 7.5k, so I made it 20k hoping to induce a light shove. Which I did, but unfortunately he had a pair of sixes that held up without even a sweat, because he flopped a set. So that was that.

There I am checking my cards, on the left.

I don’t want to dwell on the exit hand too much, except to say I think my play is fine, if high variance, against this particular player. Obviously there are other options that might be ‘better’ in some sense, such as taking a flop in position or just shoving over his 3-bet. But it was a good time for a flip – either I lose and head off to see San Francisco for a few days, or I win and come back on day 3 with a very healthy stack and a great chance of cashing/going deep. That was the first time I was all-in all tournament.

So San Francisco it was, then. I liked it. There’s culture and stuff to see and do. It feels “European” even, you could say. There’s the bridge, on the right.

Next it was on to L. A. First stop, the Pacific Coast Open. A 6-round weekender, American style*, in a sleepy town called Agoura Hills. I limped to 4/5 and found myself sharing the lead.

*bring your own sets, boards and clocks, players in  the same tournament playing different schedules, high entry fees and big prizes for all sections.

Ramirez, Alejandro (2562) – Ansell, Simon (2398), Pacific Coast Open 2010 (6)

You can replay the game on a Flash board at the bottom of the page.

Why was I angry? There were three of us sharing first going into this, the last round. I had White against IM Enrico Sevillano. So I prepared for an hour or so – there was $3000 at stake after all. It was the only possible pairing.

Apparently not, according to the USCF pairing system, as I discovered five minutes before the round. Colours are not important, I can play a fourth Black against the top seed instead. Marvellous.

Fortunately I knew the perfect opening for my angry, unprepared state.

1. c4 e6 2. g3 f5! This would be it. 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Nh3 I was glad to see this, because Simon doesn’t rate Nh3 systems in his DVD. The way to play against them is a quick …e5, keeping the knight from f4. 4… Be7 5. O-O O-O 6. d4 d6 7. Qb3 c6 8. d5!?

Probably not great, but a reasonable idea. The h3 knight won’t have a home on f4, so White tries to exchange it on e6 when the light-squared bishop could dominate. Romanishin played a similar idea against me in Iceland in a game I promised to annotate for this website but have been too lazy to do so, so I had some idea what I should be doing here.

8… cxd5 9. cxd5 e5 10. Ng5 Na6! Obviously this knight wants to be on c5 and as a bonus, I gain time on the White queen.

11. Nc3 If 11. Ne6 I can just take it and play 12… d5 with a huge centre, then round up the e-pawn. 11… Nc5 12. Qc2 a5 Possibly not necessary, 12… Ng4 immediately might have been better… 13. Rd1 …because now White could have played 13. Be3 instead. 13… Ng4! The key move, after which Black is fine, if not slightly better. I also played this move in the game against Romanishin but here I have an improved version because of the time gained on White’s queen.

14. Ne6 Nxe6 15. dxe6 Bxe6 16. Bd5 16. Bxb7 is impossible due to 16…Qb6 hitting f2, so White looks for positional compensation for the pawn instead. 16… Bxd5 17. Nxd5 Rf7 My computer says 17…Kh8 is better, but the principle is the same, to avoid any nasty tactics on the a2-g8 diagonal after White plays Qb3.

18. f3 I’m not sure this is best, White will take the pawn back but lose all the positional advantages. 18. Qb3 would have kept the tension. 18… Nf6 19. Nxe7+ And now possibly taking on f6 then b7 was superior. 19… Qxe7 20. Qxf5 d5

21. Be3 21. Bg5 is also possible. 21… d4 22. Bf2

22… Nd7! I had my longest think of the game here. c5 will be a good square for the knight – it blockades the c-file, a potential source of White counterplay and controls the d3 and e4 squares, which are important because they’re where the Black pawn breaks might be. 23. Qg4 Nc5 24. Rac1

24…b6? Desirable, but unnecessary. 24…Raf8 would have stopped White’s next, his only pawn break, when Black has a great position. I’d seen his next move and had a response ready, but I misjudged the resulting endgame. 25. e3! e4! The only move, but a good one. 25… d3 is answered by 26. e4 when now White is better as d3 can’t be held. The next few moves are forced.

26. exd4 Nd3 27. Rc8+ Rxc8 28. Qxc8+ Rf8 29. Qc4+ Kh8 30. Rxd3 exd3 31. Qxd3

The smoke has cleared. I’d assessed this position as ‘good winning chances’ for Black due to the weakness of the White pawns and the white squares around his king. What I’d failed to consider was the weakness of my queenside pawns. White has to act quickly…

31… Qf7 32. d5! …and he does. 32… Rd8 33. Bxb6 Qxd5 34. Qxd5 Rxd5 35. Be3 Rd1+?! Perhaps there were still winning chances if I’d have transferred the rook to c2 via d6 and c6. 36… Rd6!?

Now it’s just a draw.

36. Kf2 Kg8 37. h4 Kf7 38. h5 Ke6 39. Ke2 Ra1 40. a3 Kd5 41. Bd2 a4 42. Bc3 g6 43. hxg6 hxg6

1/2-1/2

Sevillano won his game to take outright first.

Equal second, a couple of rating points and $720 is better than a kick in the teeth and more than I’ve made at poker recently! Perhaps a new career as a chess professional beckons?

Feel free to comment!

So the highs and lows of the British are over for another year and it is now time to reflect on what actually happened.

Blair Connell, a fellow Drunken Knights player has kindly offered his take on the event. Hopefully Blair will become a regular contributor.

Anyway let’s welcome the ‘View from the Sofa’ man. I would just like to say that the views are Blair’s opinion and therefore they do not necessarily reflect the views of the website….

A review of the leading players from the recent British Championships,  who’s up and who’s down.

Michael Adams (9.5/11) -

Ruthlessly exposed the gulf in class between 2700+ and 2500.  Managed to mesmerise opponents into positional and occasional tactical errors.  Made the game look ridiculously simple based on sound openings and accurate play.  Challenging for the record of king being in check fewest times during a tournament.  Deserved winner but greater challenges lie ahead and much stiffer task defending the title in Sheffield next year but on current form would have to start as favourite.

 Nick Pert (8/11) -

All round decent performance.  Despite being black was the only player to seriously challenge Adams when the tournament was still alive but understandably took a draw.  Undefeated and arguably deserved luck not to lose to Williams.  Excellent finish propelled him to outright 2nd.

 Adam Hunt (7.5/11) -

Superb tournament and justified many commentators belief that he was playing at GM strength by achieving 2nd GM norm and looking every inch a GM in the waiting.  Deserved more than mass split for 3rd (undone by back door Swiss pairings system) but achieved primary goal.  Appears to play better when his sister is not in the same tournament.  Will walk away very happy and surely optimistic of gaining a 3rd and final GM norm very soon.

 Richard Pert (7.5/11) -

Only loss came against Adams.  Solid performance including excellent defeat of Rendle but overall didn’t quite convince as a likely future GM despite all round decent display.

 Stuart Conquest (7.5/11) - 

Gained rating points by closing the tournament with back to backvictories.  Undone by a masterful display by Williams and never really convinced as a serious title contender.

 Jonathan Hawkins (7.5/11) -

Improving player but only real highlight was his surprising defeat of Williams in final round.

 Alexei Slavin (7.5/11) -

Russian

  Stephen Gordon (7/11) -

Hypnotised by Adams into rank blunder in roughly equal position but did manage consecutive checks against him which separated him from the field.  A positive result in this game would surely have changed his tournament.

Keith Arkell (7/11) -

Played a lot of moves but not always good ones.  Was in fine form coming into the tournament but may have played too much beforehand.  Having dinner with me possibly the highlight of his tournament so one to forget.

 Simon Williams (6.5/11) -

Played well at times and certainly one of the more entertaining players in a somewhat mundane championships.  Superb skill in outplaying Conquest from a slightly inferior position demonstrated his class but tournament ultimately marred by last round loss, failure to compete with Adams in round 10 and rush of blood against Jack Rudd as early as round 3.  Once again showed his potential to push past 2550 but needs to tighten up his play and take full advantage of the opportunities he creates (e.g. vs N. Pert) if this is to happen.

 Jovanka Houska (6.5/11) -

Turned up and stayed alive to secure women’s title.  Decent but exposed as short of top class vs British men.

 Danny Gormally (6/11) -

Looked one of Britain’s finest prospects when pushing 2600 a few years ago but lost his way and mentally if not physically a shadow of his former self.  No longer punching above his weight and needs to rededicate himself to chess if his obvious talent is once again going to come to the fore.

The money game!

The last round has finally arrived and the pressure is now firmly on. In order to secure a decent money prize, Simon must win. He faces FM Jonathan Hawkins, a player who has improved enormously over the past few years. Here’s how the game panned out:

Simon decided to play the Four Pawns Attack against the King’s Indian. On move 11, he played Kh1 – a fairly new idea which was recently featured in New In Chess. However, much to Simon’s dismay, Jonathan successfully showed that the idea in question is flawed by playing 13… Bc6. Simon then had to waste precious time maneuvering his king back to g1.

After 19… d5, Black had achieved a notable advantage and moments later White was left with an inferior position. Indeed, Black found a neat way to gain a material advantage on move 25 by playing Bxe5 in the position below:

Simon’s position soon crumbled after this tactic and despite having a passed e-pawn, he was unable to make any progress due to the activity of Black’s pieces. The game ended on move 38 in Black’s favour. Sadly, this second consecutive defeat left Simon out of the prizes.

Ginger GM would like to take this opportunity to congratulate GM Mickey Adams (British Champion 2010) and IM Jovanka Houska (British Womens Champion 2010)

(Photo taken by Stephen Connor)

It’s 9:35pm on Wednesday 4^th August 2010. The pairings have just been published and Simon will now face the tournament leader, Mickey Adams. It’s a pretty difficult pairing but even more so as Simon has the black pieces for the second round in a row. Mickey is leading by 1.5 points so Simon must win if he has any chance of becoming British Champion. Here’s how the game went:

Simon chose to play the Sicilian and in response, Mickey opted for 3. Bb5+ (the Moscow variation). Both players followed standard opening theory until move ten when Simon mistakenly played 10… Rc8. He should have played 10… Nc6, followed by Rac8, e6 and d5.

Unfortunately, the game continued to go downhill for Black when he chose to play d5 and e5 at the wrong moment. By move 18, White had already gained a considerable advantage. Mickey has just played 18. Ne4 in the position below:

Sadly, as is often the case when a player makes a mistake in the opening, Simon was unable to recover and he eventually conceded the game on move 27. Although this was a disappointing result for Simon, he still has all to play for in the last round as 2^nd place is still up for grabs.

Simon chose to wheel out the French – not a bad idea, especially when you have just released two DVDs on the same opening. (Good bit of promotion there, Simon!) ;o) Stuart, a notoriously difficult player to prepare against due to his vast opening repertoire, decided to play a fairly offbeat line in the Advanced Variation. In fact, the position that arose after 8…Nh4 cannot be found in any chess databases at Ginger HQ. Following on from the opening, Black had more control of the centre whereas White had a useful space advantage. The position was fairly dynamic and White seemed to have a slight advantage, however, when given the chance, Stuart should have swapped off Black’s most active piece, namely the dark squared bishop on f6.

Later on in the game, Black exchanged White’s dark squared bishop on d4 with his knight and made full use of his bishop pair by opening the position up. Stuart mistakenly allowed Black to roll his centre pawns down the board. Take a look at the final position below to see Black’s overwhelming pawn storm.

Simon now faces tournament leader and number one seed Mickey Adams with the black pieces. If anyone can stop Mickey in his tracks, it’s Simon. Stay tuned for the outcome!

Nick decided to play the Accelerated Dragon and surprised Simon on move 7 with Qa5. Unnerved by Nick’s choice, Simon gallantly soldiered on and completed his development. Later on in the game, Black committed a serious error by playing 18… b5, a move which seems unnatural given the positioning of Black’s queen in relation to White’s rook on c1.

Regrettably, Simon didn’t choose the most accurate continuation and played 20. Ne6 instead of 20.Qf3, a move which gives White a big advantage due to the fact that Black has so many weaknesses.

On move 23, Simon still had the advantage and a position was reached whereby White had an extra piece for two pawns. Although Black was on the ‘back foot’, he played resourcefully and forced White to commit a number of inaccuracies. Nick made excellent use of his extra pawns and an ending was reached where White had to face the wrath of Black’s three connected passed pawns despite having an extra piece. A draw was agreed in the position below as both players are unable to make much progress.

Simon is now lying in joint 3^rd place with 5.5 points out of 8. He’s been desperately unlucky not to win the last two games but the fact that he’s getting these good positions against strong opposition shows that he’s playing well.

Elsewhere in the tournament, Michael Adams stormed to victory in round 8 and now leads with an impressive 7.5 points out of 8 games. IM Adam Hunt beat IM Jovanka Houska to achieve his 2nd GM norm. Congratulations from all of us at gingergm.com!

Adam chose to play the Richter-Rauzer Attack against Simon’s Classical Sicilian setup. In typical fashion, White quickly completed his development and started punting his h-pawn down the board with the sole aim of creating havoc on Black’s kingside. Meanwhile Simon, who wisely chose to leave his king in the centre for the time being, wasted no time in mounting an attack on White’s queenside-castled king with the typical a7-a6 and b7-b5 plan. Whilst Adam’s attack seemed to run out of steam, Simon’s was gaining full momentum, so much so that he managed to play b3 in the following position:

On move 24, Simon missed his chance to take full advantage of his huge attack. He chose to play 24… Qa4 in the position below, whereas 24… 0-0 followed by either Na5 or Rc7 would have been better. White is never really threatening to capture on b3 because 25… Qa4 gives Black a big advantage due to the fact that the knight is pinned to the rook on d1.

Later on in the game, Simon sacked the exchange on c3 – now let’s be honest, we all knew that he would be itching to sack somewhere along the lines. It was more a matter of when rather than if. You can see Simon’s moment of glory below:

It was soon clear that Black had more than enough compensation for the exchange so Adam felt that he had to sacrifice the material back in order to keep his position alive. Although Simon was a pawn down in the later stages of the game, he still had a slight advantage as White’s king was so vulnerable. Unfortunately, Black needed a few extra pieces on the board if he wanted to mate White and the position soon petered out to a draw where both players were unable to make progress.

Sadly, the title of ‘Ginger Champion’ cannot be awarded as the game was left undecided. Perhaps we can arrange for a re-match soon. Best of three guys?