Tournament Results

Name. R1R2R3R4R5 bef aft chg merit

Cavan  W L L W L 829 826  -3 27.5

Simon  L W L L L 630 627  -3 19.25

Q.     L W L L W 571 579  +8  6

Thomas L L L W W 555 565 +10 16.25

Everyone performed at their rating. Cavan and Simon both played against the players who finish in 1st and 2nd place. 

Team Results

Breck        8

Nicollet     8

Heritage     6

Highview     4

Eagles Wings 4

Games

Thomas is playing Black. 

1. e4 e5

2. Bc4 f6? Thomas opens a highway to his own king.

3. Nf3 Nh6? A knight on the side gets fried

4. Nc3 Ng4? It's not nice to move the same piece twice

White has 3 pieces developed, black only one. White is ready to castle, Black needs at least 5 moves before he'll be castled. White also has a better grip on the center.

In the following position Thomas played g6? Why is that a bad move? What should he have made? 

2. ... g6 allows white to capture the e-pawn with check forking the Rook. The only real threat here is Qxe5+ so defend against that with Nc6 or d3. The game continued 3. Qd1 Nc3 4. Bb5 a6 5. Bxc6 bxc6 6.d4 e4 7. Qxd4 c5? What move did White miss? 

8. Qd5 c6 9. Qg5 f6 10.Qf4 g5 11.Qe3 Bd6 12. e5 dxe5 13.Qa3 c4

What should White do? (This is easy, but in the game he played Be3?) 

14.Be3 Bxa3 15, bxa3 d4   At this point both teams have had 15 moves to get their pieces developed, yet both sides still have every piece on the back rank! Neither side has castled. White wasted 8 turns moving a queen around, missing several opportunities and eventually gave it away. Black spent 13 id his 15 with pawn moves leaving a weak pawn structure with no good place for his King.

Here's a posiiton from one of Cavan's games. Computer analysis says Black can checkmate Cavan in 5 moves. But in the game, Cavan escaped to an even position before eventually losing many moves later.

1. ...  Rf4+

2. Qxf4  Qxf4+ 

3. Kh5  Can you figure out the last 3 moves for Black from this position?