C89 Closed Spanish Game: Marshall Attack (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 O-O 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5)

This opening reminds me of the game when Frank James Marshall played this against José Raúl Capablanca for the first time. Marshall had prepared the opening for years but when he finally got to play it against Capablanca, he lost. That is one of the old games that I remember going through some years ago. I have actually gone through other games from these players as well but that I remember the best. Well, not the game itself but the story related to it I remember to some extent.

The game below is my second game against ACW and both were played in the Team Match Champions League Division D, round one match between DEORLS! and THE VAMPIRE. I played both of my games quite badly, I am ashamed to admit and lost quite quickly. I played board seven for DEORLS! and these two games happened to be my first two matches representing them. Luckily other members of the team have had better success in their games and the score is tied 25,5 at the moment I type this. So even though I was not able to be all that much help as a player, maybe the fact that I joined and dropped some players to lower boards helped a bit at least. When I typed about the fact that I feel more confident about my moves yesterday, I had not yet gone through some of the moves I still had to do in my correspondence games. While I went through them, I noticed yet another blunder I had done, this time taking a pawn with my knight that I thought would be safe to do. It turned out I had miscalculated again or maybe thought that my opponent would play the moves in different order. He just took my knight and then I noticed that I can't take back as more terrible thing would be coming my way. I have to stop making these bad moves now or I will see myself dropping my rating hundred or more points due to silly blunders I should not do anymore. I should know better by now. I have added two mate in twos, one mate in three, one mate in four and one mate in six puzzle today.

Game number two. The game below was played on the first round of the Ruy Lopez tournament that is being played at Chess.com. This tournament started on October 10th 2014, so the first round has lasted clearly over a year now and it will last quite a long time still. One of my first round games has not even started yet... That is because you only play one game per opponent at a time, which seems silly in view of the thinking times used in the tournament. You can use 14 days to think about your every move. Well, not all of it, because then you would timeout, but close to it. I am playing on group #1 and from the 20 games that have finished so far, I have won all of them!! Not sure if the reason for this is more due to time consumption than anything else. Not all people seem to understand that this can take a long time to finish even if they are aware of the thinking times when joining the tournament. So when the duration of the tournament gets too big for them, they quit playing in the tournament.

The best three players of each group will advance to the next round and it is already clear who are those three players in the group I am in. It will be me, adamredsox24 and djsniper800. The only games in progress in group #1 are my games against adamredsox24, well actually the second one has not even started yet because of the silliness I explained earlier. There are still 16 games left to finish in this round, so it is unclear how long it will be until the next round can start. My opponent in the game below, bzalasky, finished fourth in this group with a score of 15 points out of the possible 22 points.

[Event "Deorls vs. THE VAMPIRE: TM C.L. 2015 D"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2014.12.08"] [Round "?"] [White "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Black "ACW"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C89"] [WhiteElo "1870"] [BlackElo "1791"] [Annotator "Tactical Analysis 2.10 (5s), TV"] [PlyCount "42"] [EventDate "2014.??.??"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5 {C89 Spanish Game: Marshall Attack} 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 { C89 Closed Spanish Game: Marshall Attack} Nf4 {1.41/20} (11... c6 $11 {-0.09/23 }) 12. d4 $1 $16 Ng6 13. Re1 {0.43/24} ({Better is} 13. Rh5 $1 $18 {1.77/17}) 13... Bb7 $14 {White is slightly better.} (13... Qd7 14. Be3 Bb7 15. Nd2 Kh8 16. Qh5 Rae8 17. Nf3 c5 18. dxc5 Qc6 19. Bc2 f5 20. Bxf5 Rxf5 21. Qxf5 Rf8 22. Qh5 Qe4 23. Bd4 Qf4 24. Re3 Rf5 25. Qh3 Kg8 26. g3 Rg5 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Nxg5 { Derjaguin,A-Morozov,B (1948) Khanty Mansiysk 2012 1-0}) 14. Be3 (14. Nd2 c5 15. Nf3 c4 16. Bc2 f5 17. Qe2 Kh8 18. Ne5 Nxe5 19. dxe5 Qd5 20. f3 Bc5+ 21. Kh1 Rae8 22. Bf4 Qf7 23. Rad1 Re6 24. b3 Qh5 25. bxc4 g5 26. Bg3 f4 27. Rd7 fxg3 28. Rxh7+ Qxh7 {Jonsson,M (2355)-Lind,J (2270) Sollentuna 1995 1/2-1/2 (51)}) 14... Kh8 {1.52/21} (14... Bd6 $14 {0.65/21}) 15. Nd2 f5 16. Nf3 $146 (16. f3 Nh4 17. a4 Qd6 18. axb5 Qg6 19. g3 Bd6 20. f4 Rae8 21. bxa6 Ba8 22. d5 Rxe3 23. Rxe3 Bc5 24. Nc4 Re8 25. Kf2 Qh6 26. Qd3 Ng6 27. Kg2 Bxe3 28. Nxe3 Nxf4+ 29. gxf4 Qb6 30. Nxf5 Qxb3 {Hermansson,E (2240)-Lind,J (2310) Linköping 1996 0-1 (38)}) 16... f4 17. Bd2 {1.12/24} (17. Bc1 $18 {1.74/20}) 17... c5 {1.99/18} ( 17... Bf6 $16 {1.12/24} 18. Bc2 c5) 18. dxc5 $2 {-1.30/21} (18. Bc2 $18 { 1.99/18}) 18... Bxc5 $17 {Hoping for ...Nh4.} 19. Ne5 $2 {-8.00/21} (19. Bc2 $17 {-0.98/23}) 19... Qg5 $2 {0.70/24} ({Black should play} 19... Qh4 $19 { -8.00/21} 20. Nf3 Qxf2+ 21. Kh1 Rad8) 20. Nxg6+ $4 {-13.85/21} (20. Qg4 $14 { 0.70/24} Qxg4 21. Nxg4) 20... Qxg6 {[#]} 21. g3 fxg3 {Accuracy: White = 14%, Black = 36%.} 0-1 [Event "Ruy Lopez - Round 1"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2015.06.15"] [Round "?"] [White "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Black "bzalasky"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C89"] [WhiteElo "1877"] [BlackElo "1548"] [Annotator "Tactical Analysis 2.10 (5s), TV"] [PlyCount "47"] [EventDate "2015.??.??"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 O-O (6... b5 7. Bb3 O-O {0-1 (38) Hermansson,E (2240)-Lind,J (2310) Linköping 1996}) 7. c3 b5 8. Bb3 d5 {C89 Spanish Game: Marshall Attack} 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 {C89 Closed Spanish Game: Marshall Attack} Nf4 {1.31/21} (11... c6 $1 $11 { 0.07/23}) 12. d4 $16 Ng6 {1.64/19} (12... Ne6 $16 {1.11/22}) 13. Re1 {0.81/23} (13. Rh5 $1 $18 {1.64/19 and White stays clearly on top.}) 13... Bb7 {White is better.} (13... Qd7 14. Be3 Bb7 15. Nd2 Kh8 16. Qh5 Rae8 17. Nf3 c5 18. dxc5 Qc6 19. Bc2 f5 20. Bxf5 Rxf5 21. Qxf5 Rf8 22. Qh5 Qe4 23. Bd4 Qf4 24. Re3 Rf5 25. Qh3 Kg8 26. g3 Rg5 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Nxg5 {Derjaguin,A-Morozov,B (1948) Khanty Mansiysk 2012 1-0}) 14. Be3 (14. Nd2 c5 15. Nf3 c4 16. Bc2 f5 17. Qe2 Kh8 18. Ne5 Nxe5 19. dxe5 Qd5 20. f3 Bc5+ 21. Kh1 Rae8 22. Bf4 Qf7 23. Rad1 Re6 24. b3 Qh5 25. bxc4 g5 26. Bg3 f4 27. Rd7 fxg3 28. Rxh7+ Qxh7 {Jonsson,M (2355) -Lind,J (2270) Sollentuna 1995 1/2-1/2 (51)}) 14... Bd6 $146 (14... Kh8 15. Nd2 f5 16. f3 Nh4 17. a4 Qd6 18. axb5 Qg6 19. g3 Bd6 20. f4 Rae8 21. bxa6 Ba8 22. d5 Rxe3 23. Rxe3 Bc5 24. Nc4 Re8 25. Kf2 Qh6 26. Qd3 Ng6 27. Kg2 Bxe3 28. Nxe3 Nxf4+ 29. gxf4 {Hermansson,E (2240)-Lind,J (2310) Linköping 1996 0-1 (38)}) 15. Qg4 Qf6 {1.99/20} (15... Qh4 $16 {0.87/22} 16. h3 Qxg4 17. hxg4 Nh4) 16. Bg5 { 0.68/25} ({White should try} 16. g3 $18 {1.99/20}) 16... Bxh2+ $2 {5.62/19 [#]} (16... h5 $1 $14 {0.68/25} 17. Bxf6 (17. Qxh5 Qf5 $11) 17... hxg4) 17. Kxh2 $18 {White is clearly winning.} Qxf2 18. Nd2 h5 19. Qg3 Qxg3+ 20. Kxg3 Rae8 21. Nf3 Kh7 22. Rxe8 Rxe8 23. Bxf7 {[#] Rh1 is the strong threat.} Re2 24. Rh1 { Accuracy: White = 32%, Black = 17%.} 1-0