Atlas Chess Tournament - Congratulations, General MacArthur!

[GeneralMacArthur]

My chess.com account is "AtlasGMA"

[GeneralMacArthur]

ishan did not move so I won by default.

https://www.chess.com/daily/game/277658334

[GeneralMacArthur]

Also I'm not able to challenge thumb he will have to challenge me

[GeneralMacArthur]

I won my game, once again my opponent failed to move within 3 days.

Whoever's playing me next please challenge me.

[GeneralMacArthur]

In response to some questioning by Scott on the AAD thread, an analysis of the ending of the oakvale game:

32. Rb5 Rxb5
33. axb5

Three plans for Black, all fail:

Push the a-pawn:
33...a4? 34. b6 a3 35. Kc1 and the White K stops the a-pawn while the Black K cannot stop the b-pawn.

Blockade the b-pawn with the king:
33...Ke6 34. Kd3 Kd6 35. Kc4 Kc7 36. Kc5 with b6+ and Kb5 coming, White eats the a- and b-pawns and wins with the c-pawn.

Use the a-pawn as a distraction to get the b-pawn:
33...Ke6 34. Kd3 a4 35. Kc4 a3 36. Kb3 Kd6 37. c3 bxc3 38. Kxa3 Kc5 39. Kb3 Kxb5 40. Kxc3 and White can easily turn the e-pawn into a passer by getting the K to d3 and playing g3+f4.

this is probably the best try because White could still fall for 35. Kxb4 a2 and Black wins, and White could screw up the K+P endgame after the exchanges on f4 (e.g. exf4 gxf4 gxf4 Kxf4 Kd7 Ke5? Ke7 with the opposition, although White can still use the untouched h-pawn to pass the move to Black)

Alternatively, when Black's king goes to the 7th rank, White can also play f4 exf4 e5 and win because the b/e pawns are separated by 2+ columns and their square includes the 8th rank, meaning they can promote on their own without the K stopping them.


At any rate, though, Black was busted after being unable to get into my camp with his rooks.  IMO the best try was bxa4 instead of b4 and trying to get in either Rb4-xa4 or Rb2-xg2.  I don't think either was possible (some combination of Ra1-a2 + c3) but those were the lines that I was most worried about.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Just pulled off a pretty cool tactic in my game with charzard.

https://www.chess.com/daily/game/284497550

[GeneralMacArthur]

I beat charzard

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/284497550

Statilus the Epicurean will have to challenge me as it won't let me make a game with him.

[GeneralMacArthur]

gg Statilius.  Very narrow escape for me.  I was in big big trouble around move 30.  Curious to get your thoughts on different points in the game.

Playing Bd3 before a3 or c3 was a huge mistake, I just completely forgot about Nb4.  I was so obsessed with the idea of the knight coming to c5 (after either ...c5 or g5+f5, when the d4 pawn is pinned to the Qxb2 threat) that I completely forgot it could also go to b4.

b3 was also a terrible move, I realized after giving up light-square control that I had thrown away the advantage, but underestimated just how constrained my bishop would get after ...f4.  I wasn't afraid of f4 because Nh3-f2-g4 is pretty strong, but with the bishop stuck on f2 with nowhere to go, the knight can't do that maneuver.  And the bishop going back to e1 is even worse, since rooks on the e-file were my main hope for counterplay.  I should've just played Be5, which at least gets rid of the two bishops and leaves some practical chances down a pawn.  Instead, I got worried about the two-bishops attack on the king and wasted a move making luft... oops.

After the next few moves, where I accomplished very little, I realized I was in huge trouble and was going to lose unless I could generate some tactical chances.  The Nh3-xg5 idea doesn't quite work on move 31, because Black can pull the rook back to f8.  The key line is 31. Nxg5 Bxg5 32. Qd5 Rff8 33. Reg1 Qf6 and White doesn't have anything.  So I played Reg1, hoping for Rg7, the point being that from the g-file the rook can't go to g8 to protect the h8-rook after Qd5.  But actually, Reg1 is just an enormous blunder because after Rfxh7, White simply loses the now-pinned knight for nothing.  It's too nice to even call this a bluff because after spending a lot of time calculating 31. Nxg5 variations, I got frustrated that they didn't work, and just impulsively played 31. Reg1?? without thinking at all about the consequences of it.

But 32. Nxg5 I'm pretty sure just works.  There are a couple ways Black can get a pawn-up endgame out of it, but I was confident I could draw a pawn-up rook ending.  The best chance I calculated for Black was 32...Re7 33. Qd2 Qb5 34. c4 dxc4 35. Ne4 and things can get pretty messy for both sides.

The pawn-up endgame comes after 32...Rxg5 33. Rxg5 Bxg5 34. Qe5 Qf6 35. Rh5 (the key move) Rxh7 36. Qxf6 Bxf6 37. Rxf5 Rh2 38. Rxf6 Rxf2+ 39. Kc1 Rxf3 40. Kc2 Kd7 41. Rf7+ Kd6.  The plan here was to get all my pawns up to the 4th rank so your king couldn't advance and your rook couldn't go after them, then bully your rook away from the f-file, trade the passed f-pawn for one of the others, and draw a 3-v-2 R endgame with pawns on one side of the board.

The early game was a pretty aggressive (and unsound) form of the Veresov Attack.  I've had some nice sacrificial miniatures in tournaments over the years against players below 1800 who simply can't handle the pressure of such a direct, early kingside attack.

I missed the idea of Black sacrificing the d5 pawn for initiative.  Frankly, I was mainly playing for a quick tactical finish early on because of your low chess.com rating (which you played well above), and I thought you had just missed that d5 was hanging on move 16 and took it without much thought..  That's what I get for underestimating people.  The move I was expecting was 15...c6, when I was hoping to win a pawn with the zwischenzug tactic 16. Kb1 Nf6 17. a3 Qa5 18. Nxd5 Qxd2 19. Nxf6+, or even dream of the same line but with 0-0-0 instead of Nf6, when Nxd5 wins the queen with the threat of Ne7#.  Qb6 defuses all those lines, of course, but also rules out the very-natural best plan for counterplay, pushing the b-pawn against the a3 hook.

The only other tactical idea I kept trying to make work was this idea of, when my pawn was on h6, playing Ne2-c3 or Ne2-g3 and then Bxa6 connects the rooks with tempo to let me take your bishop.  I couldn't find a way to make the knight actually do anything useful though and got worried that I was just wasting moves and giving you time to play ...c5 and attack b2.  So I just pushed h7 and hoped I'd figured out some use for it later.