Apologies for the slow progress through Richmond, but we're now onto round 4, so almost done. I was paired with a 122 for this game - "easy" you might well think. However, this 122 is known to be improving rapidly (his grading performance at the previous RR was 167!!) and I knew better than to expect a walk-over... indeed, I perceived him to be the favourite. So I didn't feel too bad about trying an opening I have never played over the board before... unfortunately, it didn't work out too well.
Perhaps the opening itself wasn't too bad, but I wasn't entirely comfortable after I chose ...Be7 over ...Bxc3 (I thought for some time) and my allowing 13. Neg5 is unforgiveable. Back to 1... Nf6, I think! I've never been much into the endgames, but even I think that it was the most interesting part of the game - the fortress was tantalisingly close, but after white eventually found the f4!! idea, he broke through quickly; white has to open the game up to exploit the superiority of the Rook over the Bishop. Perhaps it could have been played sooner, but Houdini takes ages to spot it, so I think Liang can be forgiven.
If you thought that this game was the end of my tactical troubles for the tournament though, wait for my round 5 game to be published!
No comments:
Post a Comment