Wednesday coffee
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Catalan Team Championship:
It was not a very good weekend for us ( eebcn ) as we went down 2.5–7.5 against the UGA powerhouse. Their 8th board was an experienced grandmaster and our younger team could just not match them. Now my team will have to win its last three matches and hope to finish in the top three places…
I played sloppily in a very favourable Rook and Pawn ending and even lost when short of time against the talented Catalan/Portuguese grandmaster Alsina on board one:
gm Alsina
gm Spraggett
My active King and obvious advantage on the Queenside more than compensate for the passed d-pawn. When will FIDE do away with these ridiculous time controls? We increasingly see the top places in international tournaments going to players who are not the strongest but who are tricky blitzers! The gold medal in the Men’s Olympiad last time around was decided by such a situation….
HOWEVER, all is fair and love and war! My team’s second board, grandmaster Viktor Moskalenko won a miniature against Catalan IM Jordi Fluvia. The last move is quite a shocker:
gm Moskalenko
im Fluvia,J
White thought a while (after 20…Nd3+!!) and resigned. His experimental opening play was just too risque against such a strong player.
