drunknknite
He was winning,
but he didn't see it
and I escaped - as usual.

-Levon Aronian

Tonopah

By drunknknite

In my last post I gave you a sneak preview of one of the games in Tonopah. The other one is even more exciting. Both games after the break..

Warning: Do not attempt to learn anything from these games, they are for entertainment purposes only, DO NOT TRY TO PLAY LIKE THIS!

So the conclusion to the first game must be explained, as the final position is certainly not drawn. Around the 85th or 90th move I had 6 and a half minutes on my clock and my phone rang. I quickly turned off the ringer in my pocket and everything continued as normal. Then the TD (who was from the south) waved his hand in the air motioning 5 at me. I could not understand him. Then he said I had to take 5 minutes off my clock. I got up and disagreed with him that they did not provide adequate warning for such a rule and that if he had stated this rule in advance my phone would have been off (it pays to know the rules sometimes). Unfortunately at this time the captain of our team and National TD Jerry Weikel was out of the room so he could not back me up and the director took 5 minutes off my clock which left me with 90 seconds and left me extremely distressed. I ended up allowing myself to get mated unnecessarily and walked out without losing the game, my clock expired. Then when I got back I told Jerry what had happened and in a lengthy arbitration with the other team we agreed on a draw for the game. The rule should not have been enforced so I did not feel like the result of the game was fair. It was controversial for sure.

The second game features a very provocative move that is more like a bluff than anything else. It is not actually sound but it is so amazing to look at I think that it caught my opponent by surprise. Actually it has been played 3 times in my database and won 2/3.

Anyways it was an interesting experience going to Tonopah, I could have played a lot better but that's a different story.

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White to Move And Win?!

By drunknknite

My most recent chesscapade was in Tonopah, NV:


7 Northern Nevada players and 7 Southern Nevada players met there to decide the State Championship and the State Team Championship. Everyone played 2 games against someone of similar strength, a pretty standard team match. I faced Virgilio Reyes, the state champion from last year on board 2 of the teams. His rating is 2092. I have seen him play before and I'm sure we have played blitz games in the past but I don't think he remembered me. When I lived in Vegas we went to the same club for a while but I wasn't around for that long.

The first game I thought things were going pretty well and then we got to this position:

where White unleashed a pretty tactic that wins a piece. It's the first time I've been hit by something like this in a while. I felt like resigning but played on for about 80 more moves before we reached a drawn position and then some crazy stuff happened. Tune in later this week for the game and the dramatic ending.

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