All,
A lot went to seed today. I had a relatively comfortable win with the white
pieces against my Croatian opponent. Although I did not sparkle much.
15. e4 is the critical moment and my opponent did not deal with it well.
15. Nh4 to preface the e2-e4 thrust may be best.
I was offered a cheeky draw after 15.. Nxe4 but turned it down as 16. Nxe4
dxe4 17. Nd2 gave me great compensation.
17... f5 to cling onto the pawn is just bad due to 18. Nc4 and with ideas of
Bc1/Bf4 and the d6-square is just going to be too weak.
Amazingly, I was punted another draw offer on move 27... Re8 when I was just
a clear pawn up!
Then, to add salt into the wound, in the final position, with 7 moves to
make for the time control, my opponent had 19 minutes left on the clock and
instead of resigning, sat for the entire 19 minutes and allowed his flag to
fall. Bizarre!
As regards to the accommodation, the food has certainly gotten better. So,
the quality and quantity have improved. However, it is still being served
and each meal is taking a long time between courses. Tonight's meal didn't
start until 20.30 and we left at 22.15.
Another strange thing is that we get served our veg first, we eat those,
then comes the meat, and once that is eaten, then comes the potatoes!
We had a heavy thunder storm today, so temperatures are cool and rather wet!
Playing conditions are very tight, with very little space on the tables and
there was some quite considerable noise by a core set of players.
OK, Bill plays an ungraded local tomorrow and I have a Spaniard. If I manage
to win, that should give me the white pieces against one of the big guns on
Monday.
My game is below.
Cheers,
Chris
[Event "14th IBCA Individual World Chess Champio"]
[Site "Cagliari, ITA"]
[Date "2019.04.06"]
[Round "1.12"]
[White "Ross, Chris"]
[Black "Began, Branko"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B52"]
[WhiteElo "2224"]
[BlackElo "1862"]
[PlyCount "65"]
[EventDate "2019.04.06"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "ITA"]
[WhiteTeam "United Kingdom"]
[BlackTeam "Croatia"]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 e6 4. g3 c6 5. Bg2 Nbd7 6. O-O Be7 7. Qc2 O-O 8.
Nbd2
c5 9. cxd5 exd5 10. b3 b6 11. Bb2 Bb7 12. Rad1 Rc8 13. dxc5 bxc5 14. Rfe1
Qc7
15. e4 Nxe4 16. Nxe4 dxe4 17. Nd2 h6 18. Nxe4 Bxe4 19. Rxe4 Nf6 20. Rc4 Rcd8
21. Rxd8 Qxd8 22. Bxf6 Bxf6 23. Rxc5 Bd4 24. Rc4 Bb6 25. Bf3 Qd7 26. Kg2 Rd8
27. Re4 Re8 28. Rf4 Bc7 29. Rc4 Bb6 30. Bc6 Qd8 31. Bxe8 Qxe8 32. Rc8 Bd8
33.
Qd3 1-0
