Rush, Stephen–Zakarian, David23600–1A53ECF-ch2Llandudno30.07.2017Rush
Not much to this one; I made a poor move early which he refuted and then I
tried to make things messy and he refuted that too. 1.d4 f6 2.c4 d6
He couldn't have picked a better 2nd move against me than this; it allows him
to get to the King's Indian without allowing the system I normally play with
e4 and f3; I resolved that if he played e5 next I would play a King's Indian
with my pawn on e3, a way I used to play but that isn't really a great try for
an advantage. 3.c3 bd7 Allowing me to transpose, more or less. To his
credit I suspect he choose this over the normal e5 to avoid a drawish queen
exchange if white wanted it, which I didn't. 4.e4 e5 5.d5 c5 6.f3 a5 7.e3 e7 8.g4 I wanted to get this move in and I didn't want to allow him to
play an early Nh5 first since after say 8.ge2 h5 Nge2 Nh5 I cannot then
play 9.g4 due to h4+ likewise with Qd2 Nh5; I knew it was early for it,
but didn't see the refutation. 8...fd7 He did; this simple undeveloping
move threatens both h5 and Bh4; I must allow one. 9.d2 h4+ 10.d1 h6 11.ge2 f8 Weird move; I actually recover a slight advantage now. 12.g3 g6
I saw the game continuation but wanted to mix things up; however, just
accepting the mediocre position would clearly have been better in hindsight. 13.xh6 g5 14.g7 h7 15.h5 fd7 16.e2 f6 17.eg3 xg3 18.hxg3 f7 19.xf6 I'd intended from the start of the tactic to allow him to recapture here
and I'd have a pawn, a rook, and the h-file for two pieces, but in the moment
I wanted to take the pawns for some stupid reason. xf6 20.xg5 d7 I
realized here I was dead lost and played some random moves for no real reason. 21.e3 h8 22.g2 xg4 23.g5 g8 24.h4 f2+ 25.e2 xh1 26.f6+ xf6 0–1Monday, August 07, 2017
Stephen Rush games from Rounds 2 to 5
Here are Stephen Rush's games from Rounds 2-5 of the 2017 Championship, with his own annotations. [Click on the drop-down menu immediately above the board to source all four games]
Games
Sunday, August 06, 2017
Stephen Rush at the British Championship
This year the 2017 British Championship Congress was held in Llandudno, a seaside town in North Wales and Ulster Champion Stephen Rush took up his entitlement to compete in the main Championship, which featured 13 Grandmasters and many other titled players. After today's final round Stephen finished with 3 points from his 9 games. His performance rating was 2025, well above his UCU rating of 1844. His detailed results were:
Games
Round Opponent Rating Result
1 Peter M. Gayson 2160 1
2 FM David Zakarian 2360 0
3 Conor E. Murphy 2154 0
4 WFM Sarah N. Longson 2074 1
5 IM Jonathan Grant 2187 0
6 Paul Gm Lam 2111 ½
7 WGM Sheila Jackson 2125 0
8 Shabir Okhai 2111 ½
9 Aditya Verma 2071 0
I hope to put up more posts about the British Championships but for now, here is Stephen's victory from Round 1 with his own notes:
Gayson, Peter M2160–Rush, Stephen0–1C07ECF-ch1Llandudno29.07.2017Rush
1.e4?! My opponent pushes an undefended pawn in front of his king. e6 2.d4 d5 3.d2?! The most passive of all white's options, the Tarrasch variation,
extremely drawish. c5 Normal French break achieved on move 3, I should
already have equality. 4.gf3 cxd4 5.exd5 xd5 6.c4 d6 7.0-0 f6 8.b3 c6 9.bxd4 xd4 10.xd4 All of this happens in 90+% of Tarrasch games;
it's the only way for white to comfortably regain the pawn. a6 11.a4
New to me but not to theory, white refuses to have his pieces budged; most
common is Bb3; Re1 is also common with the same setup as Bb3 in mind. c7 12.b3 d6 13.h3 0-0 I debated for some time between a setup with e5 and the
game continuation before eventually concluding that for him to make any
progress he will have to voluntarily remove his knight to unblock his bishop
and if I can avoid all his tactics, which I believe I can, it should leave him
planless while I can still make improving moves. His LSB stares at granite,
his DSB stares at his knight. The computer evaluates both e5 and my move at 0.
00. When I looked it over with the computer and database both of our next few
moves were normal. 14.b2 b6 15.e2 b7 16.ad1 fe8 I want to place my
knight on d5 and from there land on f4 but first I must block the sac on e6. 17.fe1 h6 Again I want to play Nd5 but I have no good reply to Nf5. 18.d3 It was now or never for white to strike, he cannot improve further. I had
expected a sacrifice his knight on e6 followed by taking my knight with his
DSB but he correctly restrained himself d5 I thought the longest before
this move ensuring no discoveries could harm me; I suspect he had relied on
one as he seemed surprised to see the move on the board, but there is nothing. 19.xd5 My opponent cannot tolerate this knight for long, but he grimaced as
he made the move; indeed, my unopposed LSB is now a monster. At this point I
have around 55 minutes and he has less than 7. xd5 20.c4 b7 21.c3 f8
My first inaccuracy of the game; better was Bh2+ and then Be5 but I lazily
feared some nebulous tactic with an exchange sac in the future. I should have
simply calculated, the computer shows there is nothing to fear. 22.f3 c6
I didn't expect this move was the best and it isn't, though I don't recall
what the computer recommended; however with his time pressure I liked the
hanging sword of the threat and the pinning of his knight. 23.d4 I assumed
the purpose of this move was to swing to g4. I calculated that that was not to
be feared and allowed it, but he went elsewhere anyway. e5 24.d5 f6
The structure I was going to build on Rg4 anyway, and it is still the best
move; my advantage is now about .75. 25.ed1 e6 26.5d2 Here at about 5
minutes to the time control at move 40 he offered a draw, which I declined,
still at around 55 minutes myself and confident in my position. a5 Fixing
the pawn weakness with tempo. 27.e2 ad8 28.xd8 xd8 29.d2 xd2 30.xd2 Tempting me to take his knight and possibly the h-pawn, but I think this
leaves too many drawing motifs on my light squares. c5 31.e1 This is
actually the computer's #1 move, my advantage is around 3.00 now. f5 32.e2 b1 33.h2 e4 34.g3 e3 35.fxe3 e4 36.g2 xe3 37.c3 c6?? Yup, missed
the queen win somehow. 38.d2 But I saw a forced win from here to the end. xd2 39.xd2 f7! The key move; this one step makes the K+P ending winning
and he must take a move to free his pieces. 40.g4 xg2+ 41.xg2 xg2 42.xg2 e6 43.f3 d6 44.e4 c5 45.d3 b4 46.c2 g6 47.h4 h5 48.gxh5 gxh5 49.b2 f5 50.c2 f4 51.d3 xb3 0–1
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