November 02, 2024, Glen Rock Quad Report

My first game of the first November quad I played with Jeremy Scheinach, a guy who is only a little younger than me. Approximately 20 years ago he played decently in many tournaments and achieved some good results. However now he plays seldom and suffers from lack of experience in some positions, especially those which I play regularly.

     Thus I chose one of my favorite openings, Italian Gambit, characterized by the black position 10 in the very upper part of the picture. This position has occurred more than 20 times in my games for the last two years and I had a big experience in it.  Let me explain my vision of it (which does not necessarily coincide with the well known facts of a chess theory).

     After White’s having just sacrificed his d-pawn by move 4. d2-d4 (in notation it is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4) Black has three options of capturing this pawn - by his bishop, by his pawn, and by his knight, shown by positions 11, 13, 15 respectively. I have intentionally attributed the special colors (the green, yellow, and red) to these positions symbolizing the danger of the choice of playing in them upon the so-called “Color scale of Danger” (like a danger scale in traffic lights, from the minimum\green via the middle\yellow to the maximum\red).

     Roughly about 80 percent of my games in position 10

Black chooses the bishop’s capture. And that is a correct choice (from the “Color scale of Danger” point of view) since after it Black’s king is safe because he does not lose his right to castle. On the contrary, taking d4-pawn by e5-pawn leads to a very shaky and unpleasant position for Black, where his king loses his right to castle being in a danger position for the White’s attack (that actually happened in my game with Jeremy; but about it - read further). At last taking d4-pawn by his knight leads to very complicated positions for both sides since Black leaves his own e5-pawn unprotected (that is probably why nobody played such a capture with me).

     Jeremy had chosen capturing d4-pawn by his e5-pawn after the almost forced variant 5. Ng5 Nh6 6. Nxf7 Nxf7 7. Bxf7+ Kxf7 8. Qh5+ g6 9. Qxc5 resulted in a position where his king is on f7, in a dangerous and exposed position (without a right to castling as mentioned above). However Jeremy had not understood that; moreover he started playing aggressively and provocatively. Instead of moving his king to the safety place (trying to make an artificial castling) he began a provocative attack against my king by placing his queen on h4 and knight on g4.

     I was not afraid of his actions. By energetic and combined actions (by my queen, knight, and e-pawn) I have created a powerful attack against a black king and almost forced Jeremy to give up his queen for two rooks and two pawns. It could have happened on his 21-st move, when his queen was on e2. However, instead of playing 21… Qe2xe1 Black had answered with 21… Qe2-b5 what led to position 23 in the lower part of the picture.

     Can you find the best White’s move in it? It is a beautiful combination, started by Qa3-b3: 22. Qb3+ Qxb3 23. Rxe8+ Kf7 24. Rxc8 Qxa2 25. Rxa8 after which White had won two rooks and a bishop for his only queen. Moreover I had continued attacking Jeremy’s king and checkmated him.

     I am finishing my report. Concerning concretely Jeremy - he has lost because he had not understood the ideas of the variant he chose in the opening. In particular he had overestimated his attacking chances and underestimated the danger of his own king’s position. That is probably a consequence of his lack of experience in some specific positions. From this report there is also an important conclusion for all of you, young students. If you are not familiar with the openings you play, choose the one with the least danger for your king (especially when your king is exposed and loses a right to castle). Safety of your king must prevail!

Congratulations to Yefim Treger for winning our report contest, and a free entry to the tournament. If you want a chance to win a free entry into our Saturday Quads, email a report to icanewjersey@gmail.com, following these guidelines. We hope you guys have had a great week and we hope to see you at our next Quad which is November 9.  Enjoy and we hope to see you soon!

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