In the Open Winter this Friday David and James played on board 1 knowing that the winner of this game would be able to claim first place – for a while. James with black chose the Dutch against David’s 1.d4 and he perhaps gave in the middle game a little too much space for white on the queen side which resulted in just enough pressure to breach the black position.

Michel with white played an equal game against Long’s Sicilian until in the beginning of the middle game Long managed to push his pawn to e4 and torture the white pieces in the center close to it such that there was some material loss down the road, enough for Long to play the game out precisely enough.

Henry with white played the exchange variation against Miguel Angel’s Philidor. Miguel kept an eye on the Philidor weakness d6 in this variation in a very creative way, with Ke7 and Bc7, and timed his break through on the queen side, pushing up the pawns b5 and a5 with all his pieces cooperating to the maximum, very well. Henry, having had to use a lot of time, resigned after Miguel had won a pawn and under the time pressure Henry ended up in, had created himself a winning position.

Conrad with white played aggressively against Melvin who had played h6 a little too early. Conrad’s piece sacrifice in the opening on the king side became thus a worthwhile venture and Melvin was never able to free up his position and after a good fight of many moves finally lost the game.

Ray, who played a very good game against Miguel Angel last week, misplaced some of his white pieces from somewhere halfway the opening against Koji who managed to win material and developed his black pieces in the game towards a win in a straightforward way.

Winter 2015 Open Cross Table after R4

Michel had the chance to break free half a point if he would have won in round 3 against James. However, after winning a pawn, Michel took perhaps a few moves too many to bring his king into safety before commanding his pieces to an assault on the white position. James found just enough time to position his pieces for an effective set-up to breach black’s center and queen side and claim the win.

Ray played an excellent game against Miguel Angel and came better out of the opening stretching his material advantage of one pawn deep into the endgame. It was here though where Miguel Angel understood the position better and a slight positional inaccuracy of Ray moving his king just one square too far from a pawn island in need of protection was enough for Miguel Angel to neutralize Ray’s knight and evaporize Ray’s 2-pawn island with his bishop and steer towards a win.

Melvin with white played dynamically through the center against Henry, but as Melvin pushed his pawns, even onto d6 in the middle game, Henry found ways to infiltrate white’s open position via the queen side and disorganized the coordination of white’s pieces enough to gain decisive material advantage.

As Koji and David had a BYE, the final game of the evening was between Long against Conrad. Conrad with black ventured the position into a Scandinavian with Nf6. Long went for a side variation with a killer move Na3 trapping black’s queen who was eyeing Ra1. Despite a queen for a rook down, black’s pieces were active enough to put up some hurdles for white to develop quickly but Long played patiently and the impact of his material advantage increased move by move until finally black had to resign.

Pairing and Results Round 3

Pairing for coming Friday will be done Wednesday 12 noon – below is the cross-table ranking.

Cross-Table after Round 3