32nd Queen City Open Tournament Report

This year’s Queen City Open was held at the Comfort Inn in Manchester, NH. The turnout was quite small, only 11 players in the Open Section. I remember When I first started playing chess back in 1999, there were always 2 or 3 GMs in the Open section slugging it out. I distinctly remember this game from the 1999 Queen City Open: GM Alexander Wojtkiewicz played against IM Danny Kopec. Kopec sacrificed a piece for a couple pawns and massive complications. Wojo eventually won, but the game was very exciting. I believe both Ivanov and Kudrin were at this tournament too. Maybe one day the NHCA will be able to resurrect the tournament to what it once was.

The top 3 players in this year’s tournament (Vigorito, Me, and Fang) are all members of what I like to call “Camp Fluffy”. I came up with this name while watching UFC on Spike TV. All the fighters have different names for their training camps, and I thought it would be cool to give our group a name. Since most of the time we are studying at David Vigorito’s House (whose handle on ICC is fluffy), I decided the name “Camp Fluffy” was appopriate. The members of Camp Fluffy are currently:

1. IM David Vigorito
2. IM Dean Ippolito
3. IM James Rizzitano
4. IM Joseph Fang
5. FM Braden Bournival

The first round, which is usually uneventful for the top players, turned out to be quite exciting. IM Joe Fang had no problem dispatching of expert Nathan Smith on the black side of a Caro-Kann Main line. It was funny I had actually showed Nathan the line that was played in the game probably about a month ago, and he played it very quickly. Joe seemed to have a little trouble remembering the theory, but eventually he got it right and equalized easily. He had a nice trick in the endgame where he picked up Nathan’s h5 pawn, and after that it was easy.

Meanwhile, I was playing expert Stephen Brudno with the white pieces on board 2. The opening was an Accelerated Dragon and he seemed to not know the theory after about 15 moves, after which I got a slight, but nagging edge. I could have gotten a really big edge at one moment, but missed a really strange tactical idea:

Here I want to play a3 and b4 of course, but after 20. a3 Nxb3, I couldn’t find any way to take advantage of the queen and knight both being loose. If 21. Qd3 then 21… Nxc1 is with tempo. If 21. Bxb6 then 21… Nxd2 22. Rb5 Rac8 and black is fine. But after 20. a3 Nxb3, I have an amazing move 21. Rd1!! This is a strange move, both queens are under attack and instead of moving my queen or taking his, I just move my rook. But after 21. Rd1!!, if he moves his queen he just loses his knight on b3, and if plays Nxd2, then Rxb6 and his knight on d2 is trapped and white just wins a piece.. Strange stuff.. So after 20. a3! his only move is 20… Qd8 but then 21. b4 axb4 22. axb4 Nd7 23. Rc2 and black is tied up and white has a huge edge.

In the game I just played 20. Rc2, and got a nice edge anyways. We ended up trading all the rooks, which was definitely to my benefit because it allows me to push my kingside pawns and also a3 and b4 without the fear of counterplay from the rooks. In the following position I stop all counterplay with:

27. Bb5! Qb6 28. Qc4, and black is completely tied up. Eventually I won a pawn and we reached the following queen endgame:

I had just played Kf3-f4 after he checked me on b3. Here My plan is just to play Kg5-f6-e7 where I can shelter my king and also use my king and queen to try to attack his king! Here he just has to stop Kg5 or else he is lost. The way to do it is 48… Qd1!. The idea is if 49. Kg5 Qh5+ 50. Kf6?? Qh8+! wins the queen on e5. After 48… Qd1! I probably have to play 49. Qc5 with the idea of running my king to the queenside. Instead he played 48… Qb4+? and after 49. Kg5 Qd2+ 50. Kf6 Qf2+ 51. Ke7 Qa7+ 52. d7 Qa3+ 53. Qd6!, black was dead lost and the game finished a few moves later.

So this 1st round encounter was a long one for me, about 5 hours, but atleast I was in control the entire game, always clearly better or winning. The board 1 affair between Sherif Khater and Vigorito turned out to be a marathon game. Dave had a winning position fairly early on (probably around move 20-25). He had 2 minor pieces for Sherif’s rook in an endgame, and it should have been really easy to convert. Instead Dave messed it up and Sherif got lots of counterplay. Eventually after about 6 hours of playing, they reached a position where Dave had a rook+knight vs rook endgame with no pawns. Sherif was in severe time pressure with under 2 minutes, while Dave had about 5 minutes. Sherif defended correctly for a long time (probably 75+ moves), finally he messed up and was mated on the edge of the board. Unfortunately for Sherif, he didn’t have time to keep score so he couldn’t claim the 50 move rule, which I’m sure he had reached at some point.

In the 2nd round I was strangely paired with Vigorito even though we were the #1 and #2 seeds and there were 5 people with 1 point. I didn’t complain so much because I knew after such a long game Dave would be tired and might want a quick draw. Since I had the black pieces, I was fine with that, and after 11 moves Dave offered me a draw which I quickly accepted. Meanwhile Joe won his game against youngster Kevin Ma pretty easily.

The round 3 pairings were Vigorito(1.5)-Fang(2.0) on board 1, and Me(1.5)-Curdo(1.5) on board 2. Usually when Camp Fluffy members play each other, quick draws are common. But this round Dave (fluffy) was out for blood, and didn’t want to waste another game with the white pieces. Joe played a bad line of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, and got in trouble early on, with a very weak pawn on c6 along the open C file. At this point I knew Dave was gonna press for the win, and he managed to beat Joe “pretty clean” - Vigorito.

Meanwhile, I had a miniature against John Curdo on board 2 with a win after only 22 moves. Curdo played the Schliemann Defence, which I had expected and prepared for the night before. He actually improved on the game Brodsky-Kuzmin 1993 with 11… Qd7! (instead of 11… Qd6 which was played previously), after which I didn’t really get much out of the opening.

Here 12. Qxf6 Rg8 gives black an excellent game, since he has threats like Be7, Bg7xd4, and so on. So instead I had to play 12. Qxd7+ Kxd7. Perhaps white is a little bit better because black has some weaknesses, but honestly I think black should be OK in this position. Curdo went wrong in the following position:

Here he played 15… Bh5? and after 16. Nf4! Bf3? (he had to play 16… Bf7 but I’ve gained a lot of time Bh5 looks really stupid) 17. Nxd5!

Talk about geometry! During the game I was thinking about this quote I believe Jeremy Silman said: “Bad development is worse than no development”, here black would love if his rooks were on their original starting squares! It’s kind of a funny position as black is much better developed and all I have is this knight jumping around wreaking havoc, but it turns out here black is just dead. His best chance was to play 17… Rg6 and just accept that he lost a center pawn for no compensation. Instead he played 17… Bxh1 18. Nxf6+ Ke7 19. Nxg8+ Ke6? (19… Kf7 is better but white is just up 2 pawns for nothing after 20. Nh6+) 20. d5+!

The same pattern as before, John played a few more moves before resigning in disgust.

So entering the final round it was Dave and I with 2.5/3, and Fang, Leonard Morrissey, and Erin Dame with 2/3. The pairings were Morrissey(2.0)-Vigorito(2.5), Fang(2.0)-Bournival(2.5), and Dame(2.0)-Curdo(1.5).

As far as these pairings are concerned, I kind of got screwed a little bit. I had to face both Vigorito and Fang (the top 2 players) with black, and I’m the only one Camp Fluffy member who had to face Curdo (even though it was an easy win). Also, Joe would be out for blood because he had to win to get any serious money, and he had the white pieces. I also wanted to win because if I drew, Dave would get clear 1st if he managed to beat Morrissey, who is pretty tough but still 400 points lower than Dave.

Joe played an interesting line of the “Slow Slav” against me, which has only been seen a few times, most notably the game Topalov-Kramnik from their World Championship match in 2006.

Here Joe has just played 8. Rb1!? The plan is actually quite simple, white wants to do 9. c5, and meet b6 with b4 and if a5 then a3. Normally a3 wouldn’t be possible after a5 if the rook was still on a1, because it would be pinned after axb4, which is pretty much the point of 8. Rb1!? So after the standard moves 8… Nbd7 9. c5, i played the inaccurate 9… Qc7?!. In the game Topalov-Kramnik, Kramnik played 9… a5! 10. a3 e5! and got enough counterplay. I knew I had to play actively to break out, but I choked and didn’t do it. Eventually Joe got a clear edge in the following endgame:

Here I was thinking to myself “Man this sucks!, best case scenario is I hold this bad position for a draw and get 2nd place (assuming Vigorito wins), worst case scenario I lose and get virtually nothing. I have absolutely no winning chances here”. In this position, I played the accurate move 22… Bd8! My c6 pawn is really weak, and white’s natural plan is Ba6-b7 and Nb4. Also, if allowed white wants to do Ba5-c7 when the black knight goes to b8 (which it has to eventually to guard c6). So Bd8 accomplishes 2 things, it stops Ba5, and it also makes Nb4 harder to play because then Black has Ba5 pinning the knight. After a few more moves, we reached the following position:

Here Joe played 27. Na6? trading off the knights. The moment he played it, I said to myself “Thank God”, because if he had played 27. Nd3, I would have a very tough time defending. Joe was afraid his bishop might get trapped after 27… Kc7 but 28. Ba8 and it’s impossible to ever win it (he can also play Ba5+ in some positions). After 27. Na6, all of the pressure white has is gone, and we agreed to a draw after 7 or 8 more moves.

Meanwhile on board 1, Dave was able to grind down Len on the black side of the “Slow Slav”, but a different line than Joe and I played. For those who don’t know, the Slow Slav is 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3. It is quite popular nowadays, and easy to play as white even if you don’t know much theory.

So the final standings were:

1st Vigorito(3.5)
2nd Bournival(3.0)
3rd-5th Curdo, Fang, Elmore(2.5)

David Vigorito had commented: “See, the rating system works”, since he was the #1 seed, I was the #2 seed, and Curdo and Fang were the 3rd/4th seeds. John Elmore snuck into 3rd with a nice final round victory over Nathan Smith in a wild game that went back and forth.

I’ll be heading down to the Amateur Team East in a couple of days, when I get back, expect a full report! My team this year is: Me, Josh Bakker, Geoff Collins, and Isaac Saidel Goley. We have a pretty balanced team, and should do really well on boards 3-4. Our team name is very original: “Newburyport Chess Club”. So if you happened to be paired with us down in Parsippany, watch out!