Teamleague 38 - Round 4 Review

Let's start by unashamedly saying the team's result was 1-3 but could so easily have been 3-1.

gambiitti again showed himself to be perhaps our best prepared player, winning a piece for a couple of pawns against his 200 points stronger rated opponent. It was never quite "defending the indefensible" as there was compensation for the lost piece in the shape of passed pawns, but these are the sort of games gambiitti will surely be converting once he's settled into the cut and thrust of Teamleague.

Hypermagnus it seems was more disappointed with his performance than were any of his team-mates. Personally I put the blame on 1. b3?? in a position where 1. b4!! (the Orang-Utan opening!) immediately gives White a flumoxing bind over the board. The chosen move simply allows Black to steer the game into too many normal type positions.

What can I say about Mejdanblues game? We've come to expect this sort of thing from him now. Giving away a 250 rating point advantage, and playing with the Black pieces, he yet again established a won position when the gremlins decided to attack.

Having already taken it upon themselves to crash the FICS server by taking a pick-axe to one of it's hard disks, the little green monsters chose this game to demonstrate their creative programming talents. A piece and position up in Zeitnot, Mejdan repeated the position once too often to gain some time on the clock. His opponent didn't claim the draw in the repetition position, and Mejdanblues wisely moved his King the other way to create a unique position invalidating triple repetition claims.

After a couple of minutes staring at his desperate situation, Mejdan's opponent tried pressing the 'draw' button... and the gremlins terminated the game as a draw by repetition. FIDE rules require the claimant to write the move creating the triple repetition on their scoresheet, and call the arbiter to verify the claim. FICS simulates this rule by allowing the player to type "draw " at the console; in effect the server is the arbiter and makes the move and declares a draw before the opponent can make a move out of the triple repetition position. It turns out the server isn't quite programmed as advertised in the "help draw" documentation.

My own game ended as a draw in a Knight ending. There were a few things about my play I was quite pleased with, and one or two that were not so good. Full analysis to follow...