Think like an International Master!

A number of club members recently visited the London Classic at Olympia. Aside from Mr Carlsen and chums in the Elite event, we were also impressed by the very strong Open event. 38 of the 288 players were GrandMasters of whom 11 were rated above 2600 ELO (roughly 253 ECF!).

The top board for Bedford A, Mindaugas Beinoras, competed and finished tied 44th with the very creditable score of 5.5/9. Here, he kindly shares his round 2 game (and more interestingly his thoughts) with us – I have missed off the final move which I will publish in the New Year (my Fritz doesn’t really agree with Mindaugas but his move gets the job done instantly so I do!).

   [Event "London FIDE Open"]  [Date "2017.12.03"]  [Round "2"]  [White "Mindaugas Beinoras"]  [Black "Roman Mitra"]  [Result "1-0"]  [ECO "A10"]  [WhiteElo "2353"]  [BlackElo "2100"]  [PlyCount "52"]  [EventDate "2017.??.??"]   1. c4 {usually I play d4, but in my preparation I saw that my opponent plays  always Slav and I wasn't in the mood that day to play slow Slav Defence game ..  .} c6 2. e4 {no Slavs today !} e5 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 {this agressive move  was a suprise for me, so from this point I started to play on my own} 5. Qc2 {  good solid move, but after the game I found out that only by playing direct  Ne5 can White can hope to get any advantage after opening.} Qe7 6. a3 Ba5 7. d3  O-O 8. g3 {I'm not sure how good this move is objectively, but it looked that  bishop on e2 would be too passive and on g2 it can be more useful. I saw that  my young opponent wants to play actively with d7-d5 and open position} Rd8 9.  Bg2 d5 10. b4 dxe4 $1 ({this is must move for black, if} 10... Bc7 11. exd5  cxd5 12. Bg5 {with serious pressure}) 11. Nxe4 Nxe4 12. dxe4 Bc7 13. O-O {I  wasn't happy with my position after the opening, but I felt that Black is  behind in development and there are still problems to solve} f6 14. Be3 Be6 15.  Nh4 a5 $6 {a risky move, Black still didn't finished development and they are  already doing active operations. A better option was g7-g6 and not allow N to  jump to f5} 16. b5 $1 {putting pressure on queenside and playing against  Black's bad Nb8 piece} cxb5 17. cxb5 Rc8 18. Nf5 $1 {it's always important to  play with all pieces!} Qf7 19. Qb2 {very bad Black knight on b8 is main reason  why Black struggles to coordinate their pieces.} b6 20. Rfd1 Qf8 21. Rac1 a4  22. Bf1 $1 {White wants simply to change bishops on c4. Black bishop on e6 is  holding their position together, if that bishop is going to be exchanged,  Black position is collapsing ...} g6 23. Nh6+ Kg7 24. Bc4 Qe8 25. Qa2 Bxc4 26.  Qxc4 Nd7 $4 {blunder, but already in lost position. Black knight finally comes  to game, but it's already too late.   [ Ed - the game only lasted one more  move - what was it? - answer in the New Year]} 1-0

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