Verslag ronde 5

HMC Den Bosch – Eindhoven

Inspired by our own unexpected victory over Stukkenjagers and the even more unexpected victory of Delft over LSG in group C of the KNSB cup, we went to Den Bosch to take up HMC Den Bosch. The fact that HMC Den Bosch lined up with 3 IM’s and 1 FM with an average of 2428 Elo, made it clear that they took us very seriously.

The building where the match took place had undergone a metamorphosis. Both Bas and myself remembered “De Biechten” as an old-fashioned school building, but nowadays it is a very modern cultural centre combined with nice apartments for senior people. As we were playing on the night before King’s Day, there were a lot of activities (including a meeting full of carnival music ?!). Anyhow, we were placed in a nice small room on the second floor where for most of the match we were not disturbed by external noises. René Olthof from HMC made some nice pictures of the match.

Jos comfortably equalized after his opponent Jasper Broekmeulen played one of his usual off-beat openings. Unfortunately, a lazy move was forcefully exploited and Jos had to resign in the early middlegame. By that time Julien had sacrificed a pawn to get an attack against the Najdorf of IM Twan Burg while Bas was trying to build up pressure on the queenside in another Sicilian. My own game had taken a rather surprising turn. Like in the match against Stukkenjagers, my opponent tried to launch a queenside attack by using his queen. Even though now I had to face an IM (David Miedema), I failed to be impressed and with a clever knight move I tried to trap his queen. David decided to sacrifice two pawns but was left with a hopeless position. Due to sheer clumsiness, I managed to lose first one pawn and overlooking that his queen attacked my rook, my intended win by pushing an advanced pawn led to losing a second pawn. However, David mistakenly took that second pawn with his knight instead of his bishop which gave me again the opportunity to obtain an advantage. I saw a way to win the exchange but at home I found out that I could have won a piece against two pawns. After complications an endgame rook and pawn and bishop and 2 pawns emerged. I thought that even if I would win one the two pawns, the resulting endgame would be a dead draw. I thus offered a draw, which David immediately accepted. After the game Julien and Bas politely made it clear me that this was a severe lack of endgame knowledge. It was unclear whether the endgame was really won and if so, whether I could have managed to win it with only 6 minutes left on the clock and 5 seconds increments per move. However, I could and should have tried since there was no risk of losing. It is clear that I am not happy with those missed opportunities. The good news is that I now have played 5 games in a row without severe time trouble. It seems that I am finally getting over my bad habit of getting into severe time trouble. If you wonder how I managed to do so, then here is my secret. I watched a YouTube movie by GM Igor Smirnov. Most authors tell you what not to do, but instead he has a clear opinion about what to do with respect to time management. Smirnov has several YouTube movies which all are very clear from a teaching point of view. The only drawback is a peculiar accent (e.g., it took me some time before I understood his pronunciation of the number 7) but it is definitely worth while watching his material.

Due to my draw we were trailing ½ – 1 ½ and the match took a bad turn. Julien was desperately fighting to prove compensation for the pawn that he had sacrificed, while Bas was involved in a tough fight with experienced IM Jeroen Bosch. Bas tried too hard to win against Jeroen and after a series of exchanges was left with terribly weak black squares on his king side. Jeroen skilfully exploited these weaknesses through some sacrifices and won. Meanwhile Julien was forced to sacrifice a piece because his opponent played very accurately. The sacrifice did not work out and Julien had to resign a few moves later (for moves of his game, see the report on the HMC website).

Alessandro Di Bucchianico

 

HMC Calder

2428

Eindhoven

2228

½

1. IM Jeroen Bosch

2372

FM Bas van de Plassche

2391

1

0

2. IM Twan Burg

2494

Julien Sohier

2253

1

0

3. FM Jasper Broekmeulen

2427

Jos Sutmuller

2191

1

0

4. IM David Miedema

2417

Alessandro Di Bucchianico

2078

½

½

 

 

 

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