Tata Steel adventures

At my second try, and after just two years of playing chess, I finally nabbed my first win at Tata Steel last weekend! And it could have been so much better.

I was playing in the low/unrated category weekend foursomes. Kicking off with black on Friday evening. My opponent – a life long chess player – opened with e4 and I played a Pirc variant, winning a full knight with a neat tactic. And then my troubles started, an aggressive attack on the king to win the game quickly ran into trouble and I flailed and failed and lost…a shame. Frankly I was disgusted with myself.

The second game was dreadfully boring closed affair, once again with black, once again in Pirc. I don’t play well in grinding closed positions (some would say I don’t play well, full stop, haha) and lost. My opponent was a real gent with lots of chess experience so it was fine.

For my final game I had the white pieces against an 11 year old kid coached by an IM, and rated 2000 in blitz. Well good luck to me I thought. But I tied him up in his Dutch defense (d5 f5) and gained a knight in a nice double attack. After trying to find a mating attack and failing, I realized that I could promote a pawn if I traded down Queens and rooks. And so, after four hours my win was mine! The great Yasser Seirawan even signed my scorecard! Happy days at Tata Steel 2017.