Utah Amateur Chess Championship - Round 1 - Kings Gambit Accepted

Here I analyze my own official USCF tournament game played at the Utah Amateur Chess Championship hosted at the University of Utah. Time controls were 60 minutes with 5 second delay.

I played four of the five rounds of this tournament and took 19th of 44 in the U-1800 section, with 2 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw. I went into the tournament as an unrated player on this time control, and emerged with a 1688 USCF rating. I'm looking forward to playing many more tournaments, and hopefully I won't make the same mistakes I made in this game.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Chess
• Piewalker
• Chesscube
• Chess Network
• Utah Chess Association
• USCF
• University of Utah
• rated game
• King's Gambit Accepted
• Bird's Opening

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

....that after black played Qxc2, instead of black going for a complicated and dubious checkmate attack on your king, it may have been a far simpler matter to have used their queen to have taken your undefended b and a pawns, which would end up with black having *3 connected and passed pawns*, which would have taken an act of God to stop from coming down and gaining another queen for black. Instead, black went for a, "Banzaaiii!", attack, which failed, because of your tenacity! :)

[Piewalkermatt]

@JohnQuincyAdams1 Haha, Banzaaiiii! Love it. And yeah, if he pawn-stormed I would've been crushed.

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

Hi Matt and congratulations on this victory! You didn't give up, even when Darth Vader was pounding on your front door! I applaud your tenacity in order to be able to pull a win from a loss. Well done! If I may share some observations to maybe help expand your knowledge even further, black essentially lost the game very early by pushing the king's pawns early, thereby stripping their king of its defensive pawn wall. Big mistake and you took advantage of that and won because of it! :) Black...

[Piewalkermatt]

@JohnQuincyAdams1 Thanks JQA! Black had some chances and good ideas, definitely, and just like me, made some mistakes. More UACC coverage coming!

[goosechess]

@11:23 ish doesn't gxh4 give black a winning position?

[Piewalkermatt]

@goosechess Yep, gxh4 would've been crushing...gxh4, Qh3 (if white Qf5 pinning the black rook on G6 to the King, then simply black Bishop to e6 chasing away the White Queen, then the doubling of rooks with Rdg8 on the G file would be mate shortly thereafter.

[MrPawnpusher88]

at 5:53 he could play ...Be6

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

By the way Matt, I thought I'd highlight that your bishop on a1 was attacking a whopping 7 different squares and this made it possible for you to defeat your opponent. If that bishop had been a knight instead, well not so good. The power of the bishops in the middle game and especially the end game can be decisive, as it was in this game. :)

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

@Piewalkermatt - "Banzaaaaiii!", attackers don't succeed against experienced chess players.  Against rookies, sure, but that's not saying much. lol :) I run across, "Banzaaaiii!", attackers from time to time in U.S.C.F. rated tournaments and it can be amusing to watch them squirm after their Banzaaiii attack has been repulsed and they don't have anything left materially or position wise to defend their king. :)

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

Now how about your other 3 games. I hope you post them as well. There are a lot of very good chess players here that can make suggestions to improve your game, so take advantage of that. Besides, it's free! :)

[JohnQuincyAdams1]

...might have been better off to castle queen side, if they were going to push the defensive king's pawns away anyhow. Black's Qf2 was a devastating move, but to your credit, you didn't break down, you didn't emotionally or mentally collapse and give up. You kept fighting on trying to salvage the situation, which is the mark of a very good chess player! In analyzing Anatoly Karpov games, I have learned that there is a lot to be said for patience and to go for a winning endgame. It might be....

[yablecki]

Nice, Matt! It would be great to see your other games from this tournament.