Wednesday 10 October 2007

The Pain of Reconstruction

While I was visiting the Hong Kong Chess Club a spent a great deal of time watching the top board match in Round 2 of the Hong Kong Open. The game was between Christopher Masters and Cy Chong. It was an interesting game and had quite a nice finish. I should have taken a copy of the game there and then, but I figured I could remember the game and write it down when I got back to my hotel.
Despite my best efforts I couldn't get it quite right (not having a chess board didn't help). It seemed that in some positions White got two moves in a row, and at a later stage Black received the same gift. I realised while doing the reconstruction that this is a common problem with some chess players. 3 time ACT Junior Champion Justin Marshall was forever showing me his games from memory, and seem to have no trouble in with "White moves the bishop here, and then Black moves something I've forgotten, so White has another move" often giving one side 2 or 3 extra tempii in the position. It would simply drive me batty when this happened.
So the fact I've not been able to reconstruct the Masters-Chong game has been driving me nuts for a couple of weeks. So put an end to it, I will just publish what I think happened during the game, getting the major bits right, and hopefully not leaving a position where one side missed a forced mate (until the end that is).
Of course if anyone from the HKCC is reading this, maybe they can forward me the actual score.

Masters,C - Chong,C [B90]
Hong Kong Open, 09.2007

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f3 e5 7.Nb3 Be7 8.Be3 Nbd7 9.Qd2 0-0 10.h4 b5 11.g4 Bb7 [ 11...Re8 might have happened here instead] 12.0-0-0 b4 13.Ne2 a5 14.Ng3 a4 15.Na1 Rb8 [Another move I'm not quite sure about] 16.Nf5 b3 17.a3 d5 18.g5 Nxe4 19.fxe4 d4 20.Nxe7+ Qxe7 21.Bxd4 Bxe4 22.Bc3 Bxh1 23.Qxd7 Qc5 24.cxb3 axb3 25.h5 (D) [My memory of the game had this pawn on h4 but I can't find anything else for White!]
25...Bf3 26.Re1 Rfd8 27.Qf5 Qe3+ 0-1

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