Irish Championship 2018

sodacat11

Tim Harding wrote: »

Thanks for clarifying what happened. Yes (without benefit of engine again) it does look like Nxe6 (instead of Rxf5) would have been strong. Pity, as the build-up was interesting.

Just put it into an engine and I was never close to winning.We had the position set up wrongly when we analysed it, I think we were both suffering from post traumatic shock. Exciting game to play though.

Joedryan

Tim Harding wrote: »

That is one way to look at it. I tend to see it the other way, as implied in my earlier post.

Conor O'Donnell didn't have to play Qe1; that was a conscious decision to take a risk rather than allow an immediate draw, in the belief that he could hold if things got a bit tricky, and the hope that the opponent would go wrong sooner or later if he pressed too hard for a win.

As indeed happened.

I have been running Stockfish9 on this for a while. The only line that might give Black some winning chances was the 54...Re4+ 55 Qxe4 Qxe4+ 56 Kb3 Qd3+(or Qe6+) which leads pretty much by force to a position where the b-pawn gets swapped on b8 for the Black bishop.

Then White has two rooks and a bishop, but no pawns, against queen and three pawns. There's even a variation which ends up with Black losing his f- and g-pawns but queening the e-pawn, leaving R+R+B v two queens and no pawns on the board.
Stockfish couldn't make any sense of that, still saying =+, but the Lomonosov tablebase says drawn. White can keep his pieces protecting each other and shielding the king, and has quite a lot of checks. The black queens don't get a chance to weave a mating net and one of them may have to sacrifice itself for a rook to avoid Black getting mated. That leaves a clear Q v R+B draw.

Another line where Black tries to crawl down the board with the f- and g-pawns and king, while giving up the e-pawn, is likely to be drawn also.

It's a pity we didn't get to see such crazy stuff but instead a rather sad blunder.

Yeah I was thinking about that ending and my head was hurting, in practical play though especially playing with increment I would take the Queen and 3 pawns whatever the actual engine evaluation.

A game of twists and turns.

macelligott

Alex Lopez R4 game against David Murray shows that perseverance pays off!
Some of the older (lazier) generation might have just agreed a draw earlier, but Alex played on until eventually mistakes appeared.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

Another case in point in round 2 in case you missed it:
http://chess-results.com/partieSuche.aspx?lan=1&art=4&tnr=357006&rd=2

The games are now online for the first 2 rounds FYI (missing one) - round 3 and 4 will go up today:
http://chess-results.com/PartieSuche.aspx?lan=1&id=50023&tnr=357006&art=3

Retd.LoyolaCpt

French exchange alert on board 10 - I'll do my best to kick the wire out when I get there. Avert your gaze for now

macelligott

20 moves of sharp theory blitzed out by Caroll against Brady R5

Retd.LoyolaCpt

22 now.. very impressive. My chessbase app doesn't go into more depth than that.

Draw agreed on board 10 - no surprise

macelligott

I wonder would a motion that there be no agreed draws before move 40 in the Irish championship get much support at the ICU AGM?

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I'm not sure how much support it would carry but I don't think it would face opposition.

23 moves of prep from Peter and then it looks like he found Qg2 himself. A deserved +2 position and 55 minutes up on time. Very impressed.

cdeb

Move 40 is very late, no?

30 moves was the rule at the European Club Championships. I thought it was quite a good rule actually.

macelligott

cdeb wrote: »

Move 40 is very late, no?

30 moves was the rule at the European Club Championships. I thought it was quite a good rule actually.

I think move 40 is better (after time control) because players sometimes chicken out when both are short of time and agree a draw even though there is plenty play in the position. Waiting until after the time control allows players time to consider whether a draw is reasonable or not

macelligott

In the position where Fox-Rush agreed a draw (after 15 moves), I suspect Lopez would have played on with either colour - AND WON!

Joedryan

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

I'm not sure how much support it would carry but I don't think it would face opposition.

23 moves of prep from Peter and then it looks like he found Qg2 himself. A deserved +2 position and 55 minutes up on time. Very impressed.

23...Bb5?! from Stephen can only assume he had a blind spot and missed 24.Qg2 getting the queens off.
If Black waits there he is supposed to have enough comp, or at least he used to have. There was a crazy Leko-Caruana game. I played the line once as Black I think and my opponent conveniently blundered something, what I dont like is so many forced moves in a row.

Joedryan

Alexander Baburin with a 16 move draw? Can only presume he thought he was worse.

macelligott

Joedryan wrote: »

Alexander Baburin with a 16 move draw? Can only presume he thought he was worse.

Bring in 40 move rule next year :-)

Retd.LoyolaCpt

incredible game from Peter! 1-0

macelligott

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

incredible game from Peter! 1-0

Outstanding opening preparation indeed. I wonder did he get help in the preparation from a chess coach ?

Joedryan

macelligott wrote: »

Joedryan wrote: »

Alexander Baburin with a 16 move draw? Can only presume he thought he was worse.

Bring in 40 move rule next year :-)

On that point, I generally like to play Sofia Rules type chess anyway, so wouldnt mind personally.
But....not sure it is a good idea for amateur players, they might have one day or two where they need to finish early for family reasons etc.

Joedryan

Philip has battled well against Sam, that ending looks holdable now

cdeb

Bit of a thumping for Gordon on 10; lost to Mihailo in 23 moves.

It really is the Irish which has been threatened for number of years but which I don't think has happened yet; a mingling of the established players and the newer players we've all seen rise recently. Making for some fascinating ties

Tim Harding

Joedryan wrote: »

Philip has battled well against Sam, that ending looks holdable now

The king and pawn ending was probably drawn but I predict hours of suffering for Philip and probably 0-1 in the end. Rook tied to the defence of two isolated pawns is most unhappy situation, but how to activate?

Joedryan

Tim Harding wrote: »

Joedryan wrote: »

Philip has battled well against Sam, that ending looks holdable now

The king and pawn ending was probably drawn but I predict hours of suffering for Philip and probably 0-1 in the end. Rook tied to the defence of two isolated pawns is most unhappy situation, but how to activate?

I dont see the issue - the c7 pawn is backward, who was it said all rook and pawn endgames are drawn  this one looks easy to my eye, I trust in Philip.
Actually the more I look, not sure White is even worse anymore, just seems equal. (famous last words...)

Tim Harding

Sam did miss a trick, I think. 40...Rc3 was more precise, and if 41 Rf3 Rc2 and the WR blocks the K from defending the d-pawn.
So this forces 42 Rd3 where it is more passive. Then 42...b5 43 Kf3. Compared with the actual game it is Black's move and the WR is on a worse square.
Philip may hold but even in the game there are things Black can try. Such positions are usually not won by direct threats but by patience and manoeuvring, and creating doubts in the mind of the defender.

Joedryan

But maneuvering can backfire also, I will be extremely surprised if this is not drawn - White has the c7 pawn and g6 pawn for counterplay, just nothing in it I can see.
Its a Mexican standoff

macelligott

Tom O’Gorman set a nice trap on move 36

Tim Harding

macelligott wrote: »

Tom O’Gorman set a nice trap on move 36

What trap? Anyway he seems to be lost now (after 57...Nd3)

macelligott

Tim Harding wrote: »

What trap? Anyway he seems to be lost now (after 57...Nd3)

36. Rf4, if ...Re2 then h4+

Tim Harding

The chasing pack is getting bunched. After Lopez on 4.5/5 and O'Donnell on 4, there will be nine players on 3.5 if Daly can win.

EDIT: Murphy held his ending so there will be downfloats for Alex and Conor O'D while the other six on 3.5 play amongst themselves.

Draw is up.

Tim Harding

Wall (3.5) v Lopez (4.5)
O'Donnell (4) v Short (3.5)
Li (3.5) v Baburin (3.5)
Collins (3.5) v Murray (3.5)
Moran (3.5) v Carroll (3.5)

Delaney (3) v Murphy (3)
Daly (3) v Manojlovic (3)

I think we can take it that the rest are out of contention for medals, but the other live boards should be:
Jessel v Bourached, Brady-Keogh and Rush-Tom O'Gorman.

Maybe they can get an 11th DGT board working so we can witness the classic pairing between the other two players on 50 per cent: Cafolla v Fox?

Going back to the early arguments about including sub-1900 players, we can see that the lowest-rated player in the field, Carroll, is on +2 having beaten two strong players but Dermot Nolan (the second lowest) is on 0/5 and badly needs to score with White against Tirziman tomorrow or 0/9 becomes a real possibility. So there are points to be made on both sides.

NB: I also see from a warning on the board that we may not have the pleasure of debating round 8 live because it says: "We have received notice of planned works taking place in the datacentre on Saturday, August 11th. It is possible that this will result in errors and disruption from 6am until 8pm. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience."
There is however a thread on the English Chess Forum about this event (under International) where comments could be made if the outage does come to pass.

sodacat11

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

incredible game from Peter! 1-0

Aww shucks, I didn't play THAT brilliantly.