Thursday, May 1, 2008

I Lose To Michael, Again

This one kid I have, Michael Peguero (below, center, with bunny ears, about to open a shaken can of soda), seems to crush me every time we play now. Of course I am secretly happy that he is so good, but it's also annoying. How is he so much better than me?

(195) Vicary,Elizabeth - Peguero,Michael [B52] afterschool 01.05.2008

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 g6 7.d4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bg7 9.f3 0–0 10.Be3 Rc8 11.b3 Nc6 12.Nde2 a6 (maybe I should try to punish this with 13. Bb6?) 13.0–0 Qd8 14.Qd2 Nd7
15.Rab1 I wasn't sure about this, but Dave said something about Rb1 and b4 ideas, I figured white often has to play a4 to stop b5 in this line, and b3 can become weak, so...


15...Qa5 [15...Rab8] 16.b4?!? [better was 16.Rfd1 because black can't play 16...b5? because of 17.b4 Qd8 18.cxb5 axb5 19.Nxb5] 16...Qd8

17.Na4 This is a very stupid move, which I unfortunately spent most of my time on. I considered Nd5, but figured he would play e6. I considered Rfd1 but thought he would just play Ne5. I did think about c5, but .... but I don't know. It's the right move: [17.c5 dxc5 18.bxc5 e6 (18...Na5?! 19.Rfd1 Nc4 20.Qxd7 Nxe3 21.Qxd8+ Rxd8 22.Rxd8+ Rxd8 23.Rxb7+/-) ] 17...a5 18.bxa5 Nxa5 19.Nb6 Nxb6 20.Bxb6 Nxc4 21.Bxd8 Nxd2 22.Bxe7 Nxb1 23.Rxb1 Rxa2 24.Nf4 Be5 25.Nd3 Bd4+ 26.Kh1 Rcc2 27.Ne1 Rf2 28.h4 Rf1+ 29.Kh2 Be5+ 30.Kh3 h5 0-1


Stupid kid. Incidentally, he only learned how to play two and a half years ago.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for him. By the way, I think the fact that he just learned to play chess two years ago (when he was already an adolescent?) is worth its own blog entry. I think there is this idea out there, partly as a result of all these little wunderkind chess players like Nip, Naroditzky, Robson, et al. that if you don't make master by 10, you have no future in chess. I met a parent of a 4th grade boy the other night who asked me in all seriousness whether it was too late for her son to learn chess. So can you get the word out that you can start playing in late childhood or even later? I think this is part of a wider societal phenomenon of kids starting soccer at 3 and gymnastics at 4 which doesn't seem particularly healthy.

Anonymous said...

I hate losing to the little f-ers. Our club (the venerable MetroWest Chess Club, http://www.metrowestchess.org) is full of the 2000ish rated punks.

( semi-:) )

-Matt

Anonymous said...

Some people just have it. I mean the ability to make jokes and get away with it. Saying "stupid kid" doesn't reflect negatively on you because we know you're just frustrated at the loss with a backhand compliment to the kid, but serious people like myself would say that and people would think I was really mad. Nice.

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