USATE 2022

The most instructive move from every round

My first over-the-board tournament in a couple months was a mixed bag. I managed a draw against a grandmaster in a complex game and scored 4/6 overall, but also missed plenty of key moves and made plenty of mistakes.

Here is the most instructive moment from each round and what I took away from it:

Round 1: Black vs. Ryan Xu

The Move

My opponent was threatening to chase my knight away with a5 and pick up the pawn on b7, when the passed a-pawn will be dangerously close to queening. I wanted to play h6, dealing with my back-rank problems and preparing kingside counterplay with g5, but I couldn’t make it work. White was queening the pawn before my kingside counterplay got home in all the lines I looked at. I ended up playing the very sad retreat 1… R2c7, unable to come up with better options.

The Best Move

The move I wanted to play would have worked, in a pretty simple way too.

1… h6 2. a5 Nc4 3. Qxb7 Nxa5!

This is possible because the bishop on c1 is attacked twice, so if White wants to recapture on a5 he’ll have to lose the bishop. This means Black is doing totally fine.

The Lesson

At moments like these I always think of Tim Gunn’s signature directive to contestants on Project Runway: “Make it work!”

When there’s a move you really want to play strategically, you need to employ all of your tactical ingenuity to make it work.

Round 2: White vs. Jianchao Zhou

The Move

I had been close to losing against my grandmaster opponent, but after keeping the game going in one way or another, I somehow landed in this position where I started to think I might even win. It’s not easy to see how Black can defend h7. For example, 1… Qh6 2. Qf7+ Kh8 3. Ra8 would be hopeless. And after 1… Qg4+ 2. Kf1 Qh3+ 3. Ke1 there are no more checks.

But after a few minutes of thought my opponent came up with 1… Be7!! 2. Qxe7 Rb1+! 3. Bxb1 Qg4+ and I realized there’s no way out of the checks.

See for yourself: no matter where the king goes, Black’s queen can chase it.

The Lesson

Don’t give up. In a dire situation, you might find the best move by process of elimination. Presumably my opponent found Be7 only after discarding Qg4+ and Rb1+.

Round 3: Black vs. Aravind Kumar

The Move

My opponent had just played a4, which looked to me like a strange move, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. I ended up going with 1… Ne4, a standard trading maneuver in the position, but not one that particularly capitalized on the downsides of my opponent’s last move.

The best move was 1… Nb8! heading towards the weakened b4-square by way of a6. I actually saw this move, but didn’t have the guts to play an undeveloping move in an unfamiliar situation. I just moved that knight to d7 two moves ago! But White’s move changes the pawn structure, and therefore the situation, and the knight maneuver is the way to go.

The Lesson

Focus on what is most strategically important in the position. Don’t be afraid to play unconventional moves if your positional understanding and calculation back them up.

Round 4: White vs. Gus Huston

The Move

Black had just played b5, trying to drum up counterplay on the a7-g1 diagonal. I played 1. Rac1, getting the rook into the game (sort of), but not really addressing Black’s idea of Qb6.

The crux of this position is that White’s advanced kingside pawns can be a big strategic asset, but at the moment Black’s counterplay is close to spinning out of control, so I need to do everything possible to control the situation. The best move way to do that 1. N4f3. The knight on d4 is a target and it’s best to get out of the way. It’s better to move this knight to f3 because the knight on d2 is defending c4. After this move, if Black plays Qb6, White can just move the king and everything is covered.

The Lesson

In critical positions, vague moves won’t do. You need to anticipate the opponent’s intentions and deal with them concretely.

Round 5: Black vs. Sebastian Boehme

The Move

Here I played 1… Rad8, bringing my last piece into the game and supporting the passed d-pawn. Seems pretty logical. But after 2. Bf3 I realized none of my options were especially great. Possibly my blitz training came back to bite me here, as like in the previous round, I played too vaguely in a concrete position.

It would have been better to dodge the queen trade with 1… Qg3. Now Black has numerous threats including d3 or Be4 and White is short on options. His best chance at survival would be 2. Bf3 e4 3. Nxd4 exf3, but this is great news for me. I got my sacrificed piece back and still have lots of attacking chances.

The Lesson

Most calculation mistakes come from missing candidate moves early in variations, often on move one. Slow down and consider all your options.

Round 6: White vs. Roman Malyshev

The Move

Here I played 1. Rac1, setting up the trap 1… Bb4 2. Nxd5 when thanks to the threat of backrank mate I would win on the spot. But my opponent saw through it and played 1… Be7. I now realized my rook was terribly placed on c1, because after the strategically desirable g4 and f5, I would get skewered by Bg5. Additionally, fighting for the c-file doesn’t work. That would just lead to all the rooks getting traded, but since my plan is to attack on the kingside, I want to keep the heavy pieces on the board. The best move would have been 1. g4 immediately.

The Lesson

The traditional chess wisdom would be to always expect your opponent to play the best move. But you know what, it was the last round, my opponent was playing every move instantly, and I wanted to live up to our team name Tactical Shots. I stand behind my decision to set a trap here. It would have been cool if it worked. But objectively it really was quite a bad move.

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