Pages

Monday, 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
Rush, StephenZakarian, 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 0–1

No comments: