Saturday, October 31, 2009

are you as good as an IS 318 player? take our quiz...

Danny Feng and Azeez Alade tied for first (4-0) at today's CIS tournament. Danny beat Alexis Paredes in the last round and won the blitz playoff against Azeez. Anita Maksimiuk, Richard Wu and Anthony Ovando won the junior high novice section (Anita took first on tiebreaks.) Jessy Ramirez won the unrated section. Rhoda Lynch came second in the reserse/intermediate section.

Puzzles from IS 318 players games:

1. Anita Maksimiuk - Kevin Budhu. Anita's queen is attacked. Where should it move and what happens next?

Anita

2. Alexander Bavalsky- Danny Feng

Black played 12... f5, which has the positional idea of controlling the light squares and continuing with Nd7-f6, gripping e4 and d5. Black also sets a trap.

a) Where should white move?
b) White actually played 13. Qd3, getting out of the pin on the e file. What should black play and what happens?


Danny


3. Danny Feng - Calvin Ky white to move.

Danny knows his openings very well: until his opponent's last move, 10... Nf7, he was still in "theory." How could he have won immediately here?


4. Alex ? - Matthew Kluska How should black defend the e pawn, 18... Re8 or 18... Bf6?


Matthew


5. Sean - Alex Bradford black to move

Alex

6. Adelaide - Austin Tang Black castled here, but what's a better move?

Austin

7. Casey Jacobs - James Black
what to take? black to move


James, Danny, and Anthony (front to back)


8. Walid - Aru Banks black to move

Aru


9. ?? - Kevin Dominguez. black to move
Kevin


10) Alexis Paredes - Danny Feng (rd. 4 board 1) Danny won the game, but missed an amazing idea here. black to move


more photos


D'Andrea

Shaun Smith, tournament director


Jacob, Joel, Richard, James

Rashawn Baldwin

Azeez Alade

even more photos here



answers

1) 1. Qg3! (1. Qe3 is also good, with the idea of 2. Ba3) 1... Bh5 (if 1... h5, 2. h3 isn't great because of 2... Nxe4, but 2. f6! gxf6 3. Ba3 is) 2. f6! Qxf6 3. Rxf6 +-

2) 12....f5! 13. Qd3 (13. Qf3 is best) 13... f4! 14. Ne4 this loses 2 pieces for a rook and pawn (14. Nc4! was the only saving move) 14... Rxe4 15. Qxe4 fxe3 16. fxe3



16... Nf6 17. Qf3 Qe7 18. Rae1 Ne4 and black won without problems.

3) 11. Nxf7!! Kxf7 12. Qf3+ Kg8 (12... Qf6 13. Qh5+) (12... Ke8 13. Re1+ Be7 14. Bg5) 13. Qd5+

4) The simplest and most efficient way to guard the pawn is ... Bf6. Matthew played 1... Rfe8 and quickly got a passive position. 2. Rac1 e6 3. Rc7 b6 4. Rfc1

Here, Matthew played ... b5 and went on to lose, slowly and painfully. But it's not too late: black can still activate with 4...e5! 5. dxe5 Bxe5 6. R7c2 (6. Rb7? Bxb2) 6... d4!

5) White threatens 7. Bxf7! Kxf7 8. Ne5+ K moves 9. Nxg4. Black should make a move that stops this, like 6... e6.

6) Instead of castling, Austin should have played 9...g4!! 10. Nd2 Qh4 with mate soon.

7) I was impressed with James' decision to take the bishop instead of the pawn. He eventually drew the game.

8) 6...Ng4! wins a pawn: white has nothing better than 7. Be3.

9) Kevin played 1... Nh4! 2. Kf1 Bd3+ 3. Re2 Qg2+ 4. Ke1 Nf3# (D)!


10) 11... Nd4!! 12. Nxd4 Qh4+ 13. g3

If 13. Ke2 Qxd4 with the threat of 14... Bg4+ 15. Ke1 Qd2#. If 14. Qc2, Qxe5 and black has a raging attack and two pawns. If 14. Rd1 Bg4+.

If 13. Kd1 Qxd4+ 14. Kc1 Qd2+ 15. Kb1 Bf5+ is checkmate soon

13... Qxd4 14. Qc2 Bf5 15. Qc1 Be4 16. Rg1 e2 -+

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great, great post. I love taking these quizes. There is more an emphasis on tactics than strategy, but that's okay. Tactics are fun, and kids games are usually more of the wild tactical variety than the slow, solid closed positional manouvering kind.

You are obviously doing a great job with the kids.

i also enjoy the more contoversial posts (like the one slamming conservatives).

In my opinion, the study linking intelligence to political views was interesting, but it is obviously just a starting point since there are so many different types of conservatives (and liberals), that it probably doesn't make sense to lump them all together.

Marty

Elizabeth Vicary said...

thanks, Marty, I really appreciate the kind words.

Leon Akpalu said...

#8 also shows how knowledge of theory can blind us to the obvious: I wanted Black to play 6...a6 7.Bg2 h5 to get into the famous game Augustin-Nunn with the useful move-pair of a6 for black and c4 for white thrown in. :-)

(Nunn says that Black's best way of avoiding what happens in that game is Na4xc5, and later White's best line of defence is c3 and d4, which is impossible with the pawn already on c4).

Leon Akpalu said...

And in #10, where's the win after 11... Nd4 12. Nxd4 Qh4+ 13. g3 Qxd4 14. Rd1
?
He can play, Qe4 (Rg1) and e2, but then he has to exchange on c3 and...
Oh, never mind, after Bg4 and a rook to the e-file White's king is stuck in the center and he just has a sucky position.

Anonymous said...

Marty: Not to mention so many different types of intelligence. I mean, when you see that all the nations with the lowest "IQ" scores are poor countries in Africa, you have to question what the tests are really measuring.

Greg Shahade said...

yay solved them all!

Anonymous said...

anjiaoshi,

Perhaps the tests are measuring reality, but that it's perhaps too uncomfortable for some people to believe there can be racial differences in intelligence, since brain configuration is just another phenotype.

Before the cries and slurs begin, please avoid looking foolish and assume we all understand that individual variation has greater variance than group average - ie, just because race X is more intelligent than race Y, on average, does not mean person x is more intelligent than person y.

Akpalu,

Austinn-Nunn is a famous game? And you know enough about that game to recognize every position from it? Damn, are you like a GM or something? I barely remember my own games from last week at the club.