Final Round of Chess Tourney

white to moveIs there any glory in winning the B division? That’s what it came down to in my final round game. I needed a win against Kevin to claim the “title” outright and a draw to tie for it. It looked doubtful for a while, but I got the win.

I traded queens early to force his king to recapture and lose its right to castle. At the first diagrammed position, I thought I saw an easy way to win a pawn–just trade away the knight at f6 and then take the now-unguarded pawn at h7. I regretted it immediately when he played g6 to trap my bishop. black to moveHowever, computer analysis says the capture was actually a good move, and it turned out I was able to hang onto the bishop for quite a while, partly due to threats against the king and other Black pieces.

Our moves weren’t always best, but they were usually in the top 5, according to Fritz. Until the position of the second diagram, that is, where Black blundered. Fritz recommends Bh6, threatening my knight, pawn, and king all on the same diagonal, but Black moved Rh8 allowing the knight fork. black to moveA few trades later, we arrived at the final diagrammed position where Black is tied down to watching over the advanced g-pawn and can’t keep the White king out of the center.

2 Responses to “Final Round of Chess Tourney”

  1. jb says:

    Congrats. Winning Division B is plenty glorious, by the way, especially since you’d planned on finishing second in the lowest grouping. (Is B the lowest grouping? Regardless, you’ve exceeded your stated expectations.)

  2. xan says:

    Thanks — yes, B was the lowest division this year.

    BTW, I’ve updated the text to include a link to the PGN player.

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