San Francisco squeaks by Philadelphia, 2.5-1.5 --------------------------------------------
by San Francisco Mechanic: IM Josh Friedel
--------------------------------------------
Hey everyone, Josh here. Vinay and
David have posted already, so I
figured it was my turn. Last Wednesday was a very nerve-wracking match.
Although we were heavily favored, Philly has proved a tough nut to
crack in the past, and we knew to take them seriously. At first things
seemed to be going well. Daniel
drew fairly quickly vs. Bengston in his
Mechanics debut, when the experienced master offered him an early draw.
Although I'm usually not a fan of early draws, this one was quite
understandable to me from Daniel's point of view, as he was the only
one of us outrated, and he was worse if anything in that ending. Soon
after, Dmitry drew as well,
unable to make any headway as black against
the ultra-solid senior Shahade. That left it up to David and I. David
was up on time and well on his way to victory against Rogers, but I was
defending a nightmare ending against Costigan. Similar to in my first
game, I managed to blunder horribly right out of the opening. The move
b5 not only was based on several miscalculations, but it showed I had
no strategic understanding of the position whatsoever. It was all I
could do to get to a hopeless pawn down ending, which I probably didn't
even deserve.
After
a bit, things started to look up. David won a fairly smooth game
against Rogers, and after a few errors from Costigan (trading the e
pawn for the a pawn was especially bad), the situation was starting to
look up a bit, though my position still made a raccoon getting hit by a
bus look like a pretty sight. However, knowing that I had to hold for
our team to win, I really tried to buckle down and "defend like a
mofo," as David likes to say. And for the most part that's what I did,
with the exception of blundering with 38... Ra5 (39. Rc6 simply wins a
piece, or forces a totally won king and pawn ending), that's pretty
much what I did.
(Costigan - Friedel) White to move after 38....Rb5-a5
White could have won instantly with 39. Rc6!, threatening
40. Rxd6 Kxd6 41. Nc4+. Black has no defense that doesnt
allow white to trade off all the pieces with Nc4 and Nxd6. If
39....Ra3+ 40. Ke2, retains the threat of 41...Rxd6 as the rook
remains on an unfortunate square on a3.
Even so, I was still lost until he made the critical
error 58. Nf8. If 58. Nf6 (preventing f5), I'd have to play Ke5 h7 Nxh7
Nxh7 f5 g5 f4+ Kh4! (Kg4 f3! Kxf3 Kf5 draws) f3 Nf6, with the knight
hopping to g4 next would have won. 58. Nf8, however, allowed me to
escape with f5. The result was a fascinating king, knight, and split
pawns ending vs. king knight, in which he was unable to find a win,
though he made me dodge nearly every trick imaginable. After managing
not to fall for any one-movers, I finally managed to earn the draw by
elimating all of his pieces, deducing logically that with no pieces
he'd be unable to trick me.
Anyhow, we managed to move to 3-0,
despite a rough day at the office. I'd like to thank my teammates for
bailing me out a second week in a row, and I want to assure them I can
still play good chess, which I intent to demonstrate in future weeks.
-Josh
The above report
came from the San Francisco team blog. This blog can be found at http://sfmechanics.blogspot.com/
and is expected to be continuously updated for Mechanic fans during the
season.
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