n the previous newsletter we looked at a position from one of my games played in the "Tribute to Bobby Fischer" tournament played in the beautiful town of Palmer Lake, Colorado, located between Denver and Colorado Springs.

 

   Take a look at the position on the right and see if you can find the best move for white:

 

   Answer below.

 

   This was a really well run tournament, and probably the nicest one I have seen in many years of playing here.

 

   Here is my report card:

 

   Location: A+: very beautiful scenery, centrally located, very pretty hotel, tons of close free parking, nice restaurant.  Only minor complaint is that there were no pop machines (there was one, but it was broken).  Another very small complaint is that the hotel was sold out Saturday night, for any chess players who didn't book a room well in advance.

 

   Amenities: A: Nice tournament playing area, lighting was good, noise was minimal.  Bathroom ran out of paper towels a few times was the only microscopic complaint.

 

   Extras: A+: Nice place cards for all of the players with their names and ratings, free coffee and water, nice board number signs, nice pictures and memorabilia about Bobby Fischer.

 

   Directing: A:  Rounds started on time, cash prizes paid as soon as games were over, TDs were dressed in nice ties, no long rambling announcements.  Only microscopic complaint was the "rule" that only the official tournament photographer was allowed to take pictures.  That seemed quite odd.  This isn't some classified government bunker or something.  I had my camera with me, and might have taken some for my blog or website.

 

   Prizes: A+: This was truly unreal - 100% of entry fees were paid out in prizes.  Not sure how this is a viable economic model, but it worked for the dot com start-ups (for a while)!

 

   Overall it was an amazing tournament.  Highly recommended. 

 

   But enough about that - lets talk about my favorite topic - TACTICS!!

 

   In our last newsletter we looked at a position where White had built up an attack on Black's kingside.   This position is from the same game.

 

   Black tried to get some counter-play by activating his dark square bishop, but ended up dropping a pawn in a relatively simple tactic.

 

   This was a long time control game, where each player gets to make 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by an additional hour of sudden death.

 

   Black was not in time trouble, and probably just failed to ask himself what tactics there were on the board.

 

   I on the other hand was behaving like a Tactical Terminator - A human-looking, apparently unstoppable cyborg, sent back in time, whose only thought was looking for tactics on every move :-)

 

   After winning a pawn, I still had to find another way to finish the game, and convert to a win.

 

   In the above position I played 28. f5! which Fritz rates as the best move, with a 5.29 +- score.

 

   This move causes all sorts of problems for black.

 

   White has his rook right behind the pawn pinning it to the queen.  The bishop is also backing up the pawn as well.

 

   If 28 ..exf5 then the bishop comes crashing in, hitting the undefended rook on c8.

 

   If 28. ..gxf5 then the queen moves over to the h file, and continues operations on that file, and the bishop on g7 is pinned by the rook on g3.

 

   If black does nothing, then white plays 29. fxe6 breaking up the kingside shield even more, with a killer position.

 

   The key is to realize that even though the f5 square is "defended" by two pawns, the weaknesses that are caused by either of these pawns capturing leaves black much worse off.

The complete game score is below if you want to look at this position with the computer.  The position given is after black's 27th move. 

 

   I ended up mating black a few moves later.

 

 

   Happy Tactics!

 

   Your Friend,