2008 Liberty Bell Open, Chess Tournament Report

I recently played in the Liberty Bell Open which was held over Martin Luther King Weekend in Philadelphia. IM David Vigorito and I headed down Thursday afternoon to Philly, in what was an uneventful drive down. Unfortunately, we had booked the room a little too late and when we made the reservation they said they only had rooms with 1 King Bed available. Since it was supposed to be Dean Ipoolito, Dave, and I in the room, this was a major concern! Thankfully, my ability to lie paid off as they gave us a room with 2 double beds when I adamantly insisted I had reserved a room with 2 beds. We then asked for a roll-away bed but they refused since it was a “fire hazard”. This is pretty dumb as Dave pointed out, if the hotel is on fire the least of your worries is getting out of your own hotel room! We then spotted the famous Elizabeth Vicary in the hotel lobby, and when we explained they wouldn’t give us a roll-away she immediately said “Yeah because it’s a fire hazard right??” I guess we were the only people that didn’t know this rule!

At first Dave and I were just gonna make poor Dean sleep on the floor, since he hadn’t arrived yet and we had claimed our beds. When Dean arrived we told him to go bribe the housekeeping crew to get a roll-away. He was seriously considering it but housekeeping wasn’t picking up the phone! We finally got the idea of just taking the mattress off one of the beds and using just the box spring as a bed. We appropriately nicknamed the box spring bed “The Plank”, since it felt like u were just sleeping on a slab of wood.

The first round that evening went badly for me, as I lost to a 2165 named Lorand Kis with white. It was the first time I had played into the Marshall Attack as white, I had prepared it about 6 months ago but never had the opportunity to play it until now. There were like 4 major lines in the opening that black could play, and I vividly remembered 3 of them. Of course my opponent picked the line I had trouble remembering, and I spent a lot of time in the opening just remembering my analysis. Finally I was able to recall it, since I remembered the following trick:

If Bxg5? Nxc5! Qc7 Nxb7 Qxb7 Qf3 Rad8 Re5! wins back the piece. I remembered this tactic when preparing this opening so I knew I was on the right track. Unfortunately, he didn’t fall for the trap and played f6. Later I misplayed the middlegame and my king had to go a-runnin’ to the queenside as he took all my kingside pawns. I actually managed to get the following opposite color bishop endgame with rooks where I thought I might have some chances to draw (or even win!):

It turns out the passed pawns are very hard to push through, I messed it up even more by playing Kb4? in the diagram position. I really should have just played c6 straight away, and then attempted to sacrifice the exchange with Re1xe4! This is the only good way to push the pawns through, and I knew this during the game, but I wasted too much time moving my king up the board when it was actually best on c3 where it eyes the d3 pawn. Nevertheless the position above is just lost.

That night Dean and Dave were nice enough to let me sleep on the only normal bed in the room, since I was the only one to lose the first round. Thanks guys! The next morning Dave and I went to get breakfast at Dunkin Donuts which turned into our daily routine. The mornings were REALLY REALLY REALLY cold in Philadelphia that weekend, and I wasn’t smart enough to bring a heavy jacket. Dean was the smart one, since he just had us bring back breakfast while he got more sleep. He almost managed to stay inside the hotel the entire tournament, but on the last day he ventured outside since we had already checked out of the room and he had nothing better to do. Anyways, back to the games.. In round 2 I was paired against an Asian 2175 named Victor Ying. The opening went 1. d4 d5 2. Bg5!?. After having lost the night before I decided it’s time to play as aggressively as I can. The game continued: 2… c5!? 3. dxc5 f6 4. Bh4 e5 5. e4 d4 6. Bc4 Bxc5 7. Bxg8?

This move is absolutely terrible, yes it wins a pawn (for now), but white gives up his best piece and loses a ton of time snatching the pawn. After 7… Rxg8 8. Qh5+ Kf8 9. Qxh7 Qb6 white was already in huge trouble, and I managed to win the game rather easily. So it was nice to get the first win under my belt, even if it was against someone much lower than myself.

In the 3rd Round I played another high expert named Joseph Kruml. The game was uneventful as I managed to get almost nothing out of the opening, and the game just petered out to a draw. That night I was forced to sleep on “The Plank”. Dean requested the normal bed since he was playing Shabalov the next morning (he had 3/3), and wanted a good night’s sleep. The plank wasn’t so bad actually, and with the combination of the a sleeping pill and valium I managed to fall asleep quite easily.

The next morning I was paired with Elizabeth Vicary.. EEEKK. I knew this was a lose-lose situation. If I manage to beat her it’s like “Oh well, you are supposed to beat her she’s only 2100″, if I lose, I will end up on her Blog and everyone will point and laugh at me! Damn this sucks! So instead of playing the Sicilian (which I have just only started playing), I decided to switch it back to my trusty Caro to lessen the chance of losing. I picked a line which I had a lot of experience with: 7.. exd5.

I have had a bunch of games in this line against former New Hampshirite IM Josh Friedel. I also managed to beat NM Max Enkin and IM Bill Paschall with it, and most importantly I have never lost a game in this line. Liz almost changed that as she played really well in the middlegame. She had a small edge for most of the game, and tortured me for a little while. She slipped up for 1 moment and I could have won a pawn, but we both overlooked it. Eventually after a few complications the game was drawn.. *WHEW* atleast I didn’t lose.. Still at this point I was a little upset with my performance since 2/4 against all 2100s is not exactly a great performance for a 2300+ player.

The 5th round went a little bit better for me. I was paired against an expert named David Paulina. The opening was a line in the Accelerated Dragon which I knew very well.. We reached this endgame where I have 2 bishops vs his bishop+knight and tons of space:

This is basically a dream position for me, as I have no losing chances and can torture him forever. He also seemed a bit distracted as the Giants-Packers game was on TV during the game, and I think he was a big Giants fan. Before the game he actually told me he might leave the board a few times to check the game, which was cool with me. Eventually after a carless move I managed to put him in a very nice zugzwang:

Here I played Kc4! and black is in zugzwang. If he moves the knight, I play fxg6 fxg6 Be6 and pick up the g6 pawn. If he moves his king I play fxg6 fxg6 Bc8 and pick up the b pawn. Lastly if he plays gxf5 then after exf5 his H pawn will be too weak. In the game he actually played e7-e6 which just lost even quicker. On a positive note, we finished the game before the Giants-Packers game was over, so we both were able to catch the end of the 4th quarter and overtime.

The next morning Dave and I encountered the “Elevators from Hell” while trying to get breakfast. Our room was on the 10th floor, and the hotel had 22 floors total. What kept on happening was the elevators would go all the way to the top bringing people up, and then on the way down the elevators would fill up before it reached our floor.. After about 4 full elevators and some frustration, we finally figured out that the best way to go down was to actually get an elevator that was on it’s way up, and then just come back down.. Pretty stupid, I can only imagine what the World Open this year will be like since it’s at the same hotel.

That morning I had a marathon game against National Master Timur Aliyev. The opening was a Closed Sicilian (I was black), and he made an interesting pawn sacrifice in the middlegame. After the pawn sacrifice he got a slightly better position, and I had to give the pawn back. Eventually we both got into a little time pressure in a complex position, and I managed to outplay him. My last move before time control was especially good:

Here I played 40… Re2! and after this move it is clear that black has the upper hand. After the forced moves 41. Rxd8 Bxd8 42. Nc6 Bb6 43. d8=Q Bxd8 44. Nxd8 Rxb2 45. Ne6+ Kf6 46. Nxc5 Rxa2 we reached the following position:

I have analyzed this position with the computer and IM Josh Friedel, and it seems as if black is winning here. It is very difficult for him to coordinate his pieces to stop my A pawn. If he gives up his knight for the A pawn, as he eventually did in the game, it turns out to be a technical win. This endgame with rook + H pawn vs bishop + H pawn is actually in Dvortesky’s Endgame Manual. It turns out the only way he can draw that is if he gets his pawn to h5 and bishop to g6, which is impossible. During the game I had remembered a similar endgame occurred at Corus 2008 in the game Radjabov-Van Wely. In that game, it was as if white had a dark squared bishop and pawn on h4 and black has a pawn on h5. This position turned out to be a draw, and Radjabov was able to hold it against Van Wely.

Anyways, after 6 hours and 92 moves, I eventually won this game and had a respectable 4/6. After the game I only had about a half hour before the start of the next game, so I quickly grabbed a sandwich from the hotel concession stand. I didn’t dare go to the sub shop next door, as they turned out to be insanely slow. One night it took them 45 minutes from the time we ordered for them to make a cold sub! We are never going back there, that’s for sure!

In the last round I got a very unfortunate pairing against GM Leonid Yudasin. I was really upset about this since the other people with 4/6 were all 2300s and they were all playing each other! No fair! I was almost resigned to losing the game before it started, but then Vigorito told me “Oh, you could beat him”, which turned out to be a big mistake on his part since we had to drive back to Massachusetts that night. Instead of losing quickly against Yudasin, I fought hard and only lost after 5 hours. I actually had a very good position at one point, but then started to miss play it. I also missed a couple of forced draws later in the game after I was down a pawn.

The drive home was the definition of Hell, especially after having 2 long games. We left Philly at 9:30pm and only got back to Dave’s apartment. at 5am. We both figured that Route 95 North would just continue all the way up the state of New Jersey, but it turns out it loops back South and becomes 2-95 South.. Thankfully Dave was driving, as I was in no condition to drive after having played 11 hours of chess. Nevertheless I did my part by keeping him awake with some funny stories from my childhood/spamming days.

So 4/7 wasn’t my best tournament ever, but I was happy with the way I played in the last few rounds. Even though I lost the last game to Yudasin, I thought I played pretty decent most of the game. My next tournament will be the Queen City Open in my hometown of Manchester, NH, and then after that I’m off to Amateur Team East.. See you there!