On yet another stormy Saturday afternoon at Glen Rock, we had 71 participants at our Super Saturday events after understandable cancellations due to poor driving conditions. Yefim Treger, one of the participants who still made the long commute from New York, submitted yet another report and game for the viewers to enjoy! He was joined by Dev Patel (another recent winner) from the Quads, and Ido Alkin and Abigail Zhou from the open.
On a rainy afternoon I went to the ICA chess Quads in Glen Rock and played in Section 6. I played a brilliant first game but I lost my other two. There were four people in my section: Aaron, Arjun, and Maxim. I have never played anyone in my section so I didn’t know what to expect.
I’ll show you the game against Aaron because it was an exceptional game.
Aaron was white and I was black. He started with the Vienna Game. After most of the pieces were developed and white had long castled, Aaron blundered. After a few more moves were played, Aaron blundered and I ended up winning three free pieces which were a knight, rook, and a pawn. I was in a clear winning position when he blundered again but I didn’t see it! After an exchange of rooks he started to check my king with his queen. He stopped checking me and captured a pawn so I checked him. He was forced to give up his queen for my rook otherwise it would be mate. I captured all of his pawns and sacrificed my queen so I could promote my H-pawn. I narrowly promoted and checkmated him with the L-shape pattern. This game lasted 66 moves and is by far my longest tournament game.
For my next game, I lost to Maxim. He sacrificed his rook but later won my knight and then force checkmated me with his bishop and his queen. My last game against Arjun with the black pieces was pretty long with him checkmating me on the 58th move. I had a chance to level the position but I missed it and I eventually lost.
I wish to have won my last two games and win the section. I plan to come back for the next tournament, aiming to win my section. Overall, I won my first game brilliantly but I failed to repeat it.
Yesterday I played in a very competitive tournament (Open Section) at the International Chess Academy. I was one of the lowest rated players in the tournament, and as I expected, played a 1700 and two 1800s throughout the tournament. My goal was to get at least a tie or a win, as losing all three games would be painful. Through this report I will briefly talk about the first game, and I will talk about my last two games more specifically and how I felt about them during the games. After the games tournament ended, I uploaded the games onto the lichess.org website, where I created a study just to analyze the games.
I started off pretty lazy against Austin Zhao (1689) where I hung a pawn way too early in the game. Doing what any other strong chess player would do, I continued through the game. Later I said to myself in my head, “I already blundered a pawn, I might as well sacrifice two more,” which was the totally wrong attitude. As I played off my thought, I completely opened my king for an attack that wouldn’t work against any moderate player. I put my king down as I resigned and had a bad start to my chess tournament.
This was unfortunate and a bad start, but I refreshed my mind for the next game.
Next, I played a tougher opponent, Julian Ma, (1774) who sacrificed his bishop and won the game the first time I played him. I was nervous, because I knew he would find any simple mistake I would make, as happened in the game.
I didn’t really study this opening, but it started out as 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e6, which is a very simple Sicilian opening variation. He played one of the top moves, 5. Nc3 which I responded with Nf6 the evaluation of the computer was better for white, but I quickly evened it out by move 13. 6. Bf4 Bb4 7. Nb5 e5 8. Bg5 O-O 9. a3 Be7 10. Bc4 a6 11. Nd6 Nd4 12. Nxc8 Rxc8 13. Bd3
Next, I played Nxe4?? a complete disaster. Clearly, I miscalculated, 14. Bxe7 Nxc3 15. Bxh7+!! Kxh7 16. Qh5+? Qd3+ was better. Kg8 17. Bxd8 Nxc2+ 18. Kd2? Now white is only better by one point after Ne4+! 19. Ke2 Nxa1 20. Rxa1 Rfxd8 I was willing to play this position because of my two central pawns. I knew I had chances. Then followed 21. Rd1 d5 22. Qf5 Nf6 23. g4 Rc4 24. g5 Rf4 25. Qxf4? white should have simply played qc2 which defends everything, and white would be up a whopping 3 points in evaluation. exf4 26. gxf6 gxf6 27. Kf3 and I was up 2 pawns but they were tripled. So we played on and the game ended as a draw. My hands were shaking at the end because I really didn’t want to lose. This was one of the most intense games of my chess experience.
In the last game, I played William Guskind, another very kind and strong player.
The game started out as 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. d4 c6 5. Be2 Bf5 As I studied earlier, the engine favors my position as I have an advantage in the opening. Obviously, it's easier to play for white. 6. c3 e6 7. Bf4 Bd6 8. Bxd6 Qxd6 9. Qb3 Qc7 10. Nbd2 O-O 11. O-O Nbd7 12. Nc4 Nd5 13. Rfe1 b5 14. Ne3!? The engine doesn’t really like this move because e3 would be weak, but I thought that it would dominate the center. Nxe3 15. fxe3 a5 16. Qd1 Rfb8 17. Bd3 Bg6 18. Bxg6 hxg6 19. Ng5 Nf6 20. Qf3 Nh7 21. Nxh7 Kxh7 22. Rf1 f5 23. Qf4!? I should have kept the queen and two rooks endgame, as it would be much easier for white. I exchanged queens because of black’s weak pawns, e6 and c6. Black also had doubled pawns. Qxf4 24. exf4 Kg8 25. Rae1 Kf7 26. Re5 b4 27. c4 Rd8 28. Rd1 Rd6 the computer says that white is better by 1 point, but no one below 2000 would find the breakthrough in my opinion. 29. Kf2 a4 30. Ke3 a3 31. b3 Rc8 The engine thinks that white is better by 1.3 but it is extremely hard to break through. It becomes more drawish after 32. c5 Rd5 33. Rc1 Rcd8 34. Rc4 Rb8 35. Kd3 Rdd8 36. Rc1 Rd5 37. Kc4 Rdd8 38. Rce1 Re8 39. h3 Kf6 40. g4 Kf7 41. g5 Rb7 42. h4 Rbb8 43. Rh1 Rh8 44. Re3 Rb7 45. Reh3 Rbb8 46. h5 gxh5 47. Rxh5 Rxh5 48. Rxh5 Kg6 49. Rh1 Kf7 50. Kd3 Kg6 51. Re1 Kf7 52. Kc4 Rb7 53. Re5 Rb8 54. Kd3 Rb7 55. d5!? You’ll see why soon. cxd5 56. Kd4 black could have blundered with rb8 because I would be able to play c6 and my king would enter. But Guskind correctly played Rc7 57. Re1 Rc8 and the game ended as a draw. Throughout the game the computer said I was better by 1-2 points, but I couldn’t find a way through.
To conclude, I was proud of tying two 1800s, and last open I beat an 1800. It shows that I am close to playing at their level, and I’m very excited to play in more ICA Open tournaments. Thank you for reading!
This is my very first time playing the ICA Open. Thanks to Lucas Chen’s parents who gave us a ride in this rainy weather so that we were able to get there from Manhattan.
I am a 2nd-grader and probably the youngest in this tournament. The first round I played Jack Kamen as white.
His mom laughed loudly when seeing me. This game was in fact the very first one to finish and took only 18 mins. It had only 25 moves. I felt pretty confident at the 14th move. From this game, I proved that age does not matter in chess. All diverse chess players should be respected, no matter how young or how old they are.
My second game was with my schoolmate Lucas Yang. I had advantages in the middlegame but I lost the opportunity to trade when it was best to trade so that eventually I lost my advantages completely.
At move #33, I should have played rook taking rook, but I hid my rook and soon I lost my bishop. My lack of courage costed the winning game. We ended with a draw. From this game, I learned the importance of calculation and being brave when playing chess.
I am glad that I joined this tournament. I will come back! Thank you very much!
Yefim Treger welcomes everybody! During all day of the tournament it was raining cats and dogs. I was tired of fighting water coming from the sky to come to the site from New York. That is why I decided to play my favorite (from my youth) opening – ModernPirc defense. On the photograph you see a very characteristic position which occurred in a game against David Zhang. Here I am describing the essential ideas of the opening. Black fianchettos his dark-color bishop hoping to fight center later. White may choose (and chose in a game!) a very dangerous plan for Black: a long side castling, trading bishops and a direct attack Black’s king. But he cannot forget about his own development and the numerous Black’s defensive ideas. That is what happened in a game and Black managed to get a good position from the opening. Yet then my opponent played very creative and I have to credit him for some moves. Having at the end a good position I decided not to risk and offered David a draw which he accepted. See my game with the comments below.
Congratulations to all winners: click here to view rating reports for QUADS and OPEN!
Our next Quads will be held NEXT SATURDAY on September 30. Click HERE to register!
Even more importantly, our next Open tournmaent will be held at BERGEN COUNTY ACADEMIES on October 15. Click HERE for more information, or click to register for OPEN, U1600, or Sections 1-5!
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for updates on tournaments, classes, and other information.
SECTION 6 REPORT by Dev Patel
OPEN SECTION REPORT PART 1 by Ido Alkin
OPEN SECTION REPORT PART 2 by Abigail Zhou
OPEN SECTION REPORT Part 3 by YEFIM TREGER
Visitors: 699