GAMES
When you play through a grandmaster game much of the interesting stuff is never played but buried in the notes because mistakes are rare. On the other hand games by club players can be much more instructive as it shows the things that can happen at our level.
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Here, we hope to publish interesting games played by our club members of all standards.
GAME 1:
From our first match of the season against Downend. A very smooth game played by Andrew Borkowski beautifully demonstrating the importance of development and having a plan and sticking to it.
GAME 2:
From our second match of the season against Horfield. Doug weakens his opponents central pawn structure and then ruthlessly targets the e6 square and by move 30 has black in Zugzwang! A really fine positional win!
GAME 3:
From our second match of the season against Horfield. A close, slightly topsy turvy game in which white plays passively in the opening only for things to even out. Later white manages to win a pawn with winning chances. Andrew then goes into "swindle mode" and things suddenly get very complicated - so complicated that with frayed nerves and little time on the clock a draw (a fair result) was agreed even though Andrew now had the upper hand.
GAME 4:
Dan was playing his first game for us on board two against Clevedon. It's a very smooth, accurate and thematic game demonstrating how dangerous The Vienna Gambit can be if black doesn't know what they are doing. Notice how efficient white's development is and how Dan quickly builds up on the f-file. Nice!
GAME 5:
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Edward plays his first game for the club on Board Three against a top of the league Clifton side. He outplays his opponent in the opening and builds up a crushing attack against black's king which forced his opponent to give up material. It looked at first as though it was all over but actually was surprisingly difficult to break through and after a loose move his opponent managed to save the game. An excellent performance non-the-less and one which shows great promise!
GAME 6:
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This is Curtis' first game for the club where he shows good tactical awareness to firstly win a piece by trapping his opponent's bishop in the middle of the board, then to fork his opponent's rook and knight and finally skewer the white King and Queen. A couple of lapses in concentration, however, could have undone all the good work and the win wasn't assured until very late on.
GAME 7:
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Another impressive game by Dan who took full advantage of his opponent's weakened central pawns. There are some instructive aspects to the ending that are well worth having a look at.
GAME 8:
Andrew has been as steady as a rock on board one and on this occasion tried stirring things up with a Budapest Gambit. It turned out that his opponent was also an afficionado of this line and knew how to steer thge game into safe waters. An accurate play on both sides resulted in a level game which was eventually drawn
GAME 9:
Andrew's opponent goes wrong early on but survives to enter a complex BvN ending. Although this was technically drawn Andrew graduallly outplays his opponent and demonstrates the superiority of his knight over his opponent's bishop. Instructive!
GAME 10:
Another very smooth performance from Dan, this time playing the Vienna Game as white. The kingside is very thematic, instructive and devastating. Enjoy!
GAME 11:
A very instructive game by SJ playing the white side of an QGD Exchange Variation. Having gained space in the centre SJ skilfully transfers her queen's knight to assist in the kingside attack. Black plays well but misses an opportunity to simplify and finds his queen run out of squares!
GAME 12:
White plays passively in the opening and Ibrahim takes full advantage. With most of white's pieces cut off from the kingside Ibrahim ramps up the pressure targeting the weakened light squares. White finds no defence and has to give his queen after whiuch Ibrahim finishes of efficiently.
GAME 13:
Andrew employs his favourite Colle-Zukertort System against a very promising junior opponent. The pressure builds in the centre and what at first seems to be a slight error by his opponent, turns out to be terminal. Andrew ruthlessly advances his pawns on the d and c files and exposes the fault lines in black's position. A very smooth and powerful performance by Andrew!
GAME 14:
A really top quality game by Baptiste in which he continually ramped up the pressure on his opponent and then executed a deadly attack on his opponent's weakened king position. Really instructive!