Coffee Shop Blogging
Coffee Shop Blogging
Originally uploaded by gilachess.
Round 2 is just over and I played a full 3 hours plus again! Life’s not fair. Yesterday the pairings gave me a strong player like Masrin and this morning I had to battle it out with Selangor Open First Champion - Woo Beng Keong. I spent the night keying Woo’s game into the computer to find weaknesses. I was cursing myself for not entering them earlier especially since I was compiling and selling the new Malaysian players CD. It never occured to me I would be using this CD myself 
Anyway, I don’t think I’ve studied or prepared harder for any opponent in my life. Things were compounded by the fact that the games that I had of Woo were from the 1976 olympiads!!
Luckily my CD contained some of his games from last year’s Selangor Open.Even though a veteran, Woo has a very agressive style and plays the Sicilian Dragon vs 1.e4 which was what I exclusively played. He only lost to non-e4 moves. So the dilemma was to either to play the man or play the board. I prepared some lines of the Sicilian Grand Prix which was positional and also the variation of Reti Stonemaster played to beat Woo last year.
On my way to Wilayah Complex I still hadn’t decided what to play!
I chose to “play the man” and play a position of what I thought was most not liked by my opponent. But it was hard to play something other than 1.e4 as White. So the game started with 1.Nf3 and ended up looking sort of like a King Indian Attack position. Woo’s only weakness to me was his apparent weakness in slow, closed positions. My strategy of course didn’t work as Woo made every effort to open up the postion and stake central square control. It looked like I was heading for defeat. But as Black that would mean too many pawn moves and a lack of developement. I developed all my pieces fast. Kept all my pawns not beyond the 4th rank and Woo’s position gradually became worse. Again I was not prepared psychologically on the sudden turn of event. this strong player. Could I even dare to think I can win?? Of course, I didn’t win. Woo’s too strong for that. In the end Woo sac the exchange for 2 pawns with an almost even material position. But with Queens on the board anything can happen. Woo was down to a minute and I had 15 minutes left. I was already happy as my aim of going over 30 moves was accomplished.
The game ended in 35 moves when I offered a draw as I had lost all the advantage I had in the middlegame. Woo could have kept on playing to beat me (which I’m sure he could) but didn’t want to risk it with the clock.
So I achieved my second draw!! It was damn tiring. My reward is this porridge that I’m now having while keying this blog entry.
Oops I’m going to be late for the next round … again … 
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