Playing 2 or even 3 games a day makes a weekend tournament into a test of endurance. Being able to defeat weaker players without expending too much energy is a key skill of the seasoned road warrior. I didn’t manage to demonstrate this skill convincingly in either Limburg or Haarlem. My second rounds in particular…
Category: The Endgame
We carry on our examination of my games from the recent 2017 Limburg Open with brief episodes from 2 crucial games: my win against the Dutch IM Koen Leenhouts in the 5th round which took me to shared first, and the crazy finale to the tournament against Ivan Sokolov which secured me a share of…
Perhaps my most interesting game was the long struggle against 3C’s Adam Ashton on the second day of the last weekend. During and after the game, I had a number of thoughts about the practical side of converting a slight advantage, and after writing them down, I thought it was worth sharing them with you!…
While rummaging through some old score sheets, I came across a couple of interesting rook endings which I thought were worth sharing. They were both played for Solingen in the Bundesliga just after I retired from professional chess and started a full-time job in Amsterdam. In both cases, I was on the grinding side of…
In this article, I look back to an ending I played in the 4NCL in November 2015. It was a weekend of endgames for me as the queens came off the next day as soon as move 14! I reached the position in the diagram after 31 rather dour moves. I felt my position…