First round(s) of an open tournament are often useless. The massive rating-gap causes most games to be one-direction traffic which none of the players enjoy. The stronger player wins too easily for getting any satisfaction of it. The weaker player gets beaten so hard that it is even impossible to learn anything from it. As I wrote in my article the favorite is hundreds points stronger, there are some good reasons to avoid that type of games.
Exactly because of it in some tournaments the organizers choose for accelerated pairings in the first rounds. Stronger players get temporarily extra pairing-points at the start conform their rating which allows the players to play quicker more interesting games. In the worldcup a reversed bottom half was used for the first round-pairings see worldCup2017Regulations.pdf whereby players in the middle of the table get immediately some equal opponents. Random pairings is another controversial possibility which was tested recently in the Isle of Man. That experiment created even a surprising top-encounter see Isle of Man open 1st round: Caruana-beats-Kramnik.
Nevertheless ratings aren't an exact science. Blunders happen even by the very best players so it is always fun to see who will be the schmuck in the first round. Which favorite will be ridiculed by losing against a much lower rated opponent (often the difference is larger than 500 elo)? For now I was able to avoid such disgrace but in my last open this almost changed. Honestly I felt in advance already trouble. I hadn't played an official game since my last round of the Belgian interclub so April (it is hard to play interesting games fitting in my loaded agenda see inactivity). Besides I had noticed a couple of minutes before the game that my opponent Sarah Dierckens, likes to play the Ponziani. Now I have demonstrated on my blog that the opening is compromised but this demands a piece-sacrifice of black leading to some wild complications. I saw during the start of the game that the Belgian FM Roel Hamblok was looking doubtful to whites opening-choice but in fact white executes exactly one of the best strategies against a stronger opponent. Try to create complications which none of the players can control see How to win from a stronger player?
It is often hard to pinpoint the exact reason why a mistake was made. I do know that the massive blunder was the consequence of a hallucination but I can't explain how this hallucination happened. Naturally I was relieved after the game that I escaped contrary to one of my games played end of last year see comebacks part 3. Without any cooperation this does not work. For a longtime it appeared that I would not be able to escape as in the end it took me more than 20 moves to turn the tide. In more than 20 years of competition this is my longest escape.
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Normally an extra piece always wins easily but due to the uncomfortable position of white's king in the center, I could keep looking for tricks. I avoided as much as possible exchanges and maybe my recent experiences with handicap-games against my daughter Evelien (she recently also started to play chess) helped too. In some sense the escape is at least as surprising as my blunder.
Of course such comebacks are happening all the time between beginners. They give away pieces many times during a game which makes a game very unpredictable. However experienced tournament-players will offer very rarely presents to their opponents. It is not a record my escape. Neither is the length nor the size of it. No compared with the game below then my game is just very average. Indeed that was a standard game in which both players had plenty of time. Also white is not a beginner at all: James Burden, an American expert of 2100 elo.
[Event "Las Vegas National op"]
[Site "Las Vegas"]
[Date "1992.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Burden, James"]
[Black "Christiansen"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B07"]
[PlyCount "136"]
[WhiteElo ""]
[BlackElo ""]
[CurrentPosition "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Be3 c6 5.Bc4 Nf6 6.f3 O-O 7.Qd2 d5 8.Bb3 dxe4 9.Nxe4 Nxe4 10.fxe4 e5 11.d5 Qh4+ 12.Qf2 Qxe4 13.O-O-O a5 14.a3 a4 15.Ba2 Bg4 16.Ne2 Nd7 { (A big blunder from the American grandmaster Larry Christiansen.) } 17.Ng3 Qxe3+ 18.Qxe3 Bxd1 19.Rxd1 { (Black has only a rook+ pawn for the queen.) } 19...c5 20.Ne4 b6 21.Rf1 f6 22.Qh3 f5 23.Ng5 Nf6 24.d6+ Kh8 25.Nf7+ Rxf7 26.Bxf7 { (Now black has only knight + pawn for the queen.) } 26...Ng4 27.Kb1 Nh6 28.Bc4 Ng4 29.Qd3 Rd8 30.d7 e4 31.Qd6 Be5 32.Qe7 Bf6 33.Qe8+ Kg7 34.Qf7+ Kh6 35.h3 Ne3 36.Qxf6 Rxd7 { (Yes things even became worse. Now it are only 2 pawns for the queen anymore. ) } 37.Qe6 Rd4 38.Re1 Nxg2 39.Rg1 Nf4 40.Qg8 e3 41.Qf8+ Kh5 42.h4 Rxc4 43.Qf6 Kh6 44.Qg5+ Kg7 45.Qe7+ Kh6 46.Qxe3 Re4 47.Qf2 Nh3 48.Qd2+ Kh5 49.Re1 Rxe1+ 50.Qxe1 { (Black recuperated the knight but it is still utterly lost of course.) } 50...f4 51.Qe7 h6 52.Qf6 g5 53.hxg5 hxg5 54.Qxb6 f3 55.Qxc5 Kg4 56.Qe3 Kg3 57.c4 Kg2 58.c5 f2 59.Qe4+?? Kh2 60.Qf3 g4 61.Qe2 g3 62.c6?? g2 63.Qe5+ Kh1 64.c7 g1=Q+ 65.Kc2 f1=Q 66.Kc3 Qc1+ 67.Kb4 Qb6+ 68.Kxa4 Qbc6+ 0-1
The hardest game to win is a won game (quote of Emmanuel Lasker). Well I don't think Sarah underestimated me after she got a won position. She played patiently and was able to counter for a long time my desperate moves. Maybe she was even a bit too careful as she missed my quick switch of the rooks to the c-file. Anyway it is unclear which strategy would've been better for white. Some technical mistakes in complex situations are unavoidable as it is linked to our playing strength. Probably I was just lucky to create sufficient problems to escape.
Brabo
