Wednesday 1 July 2009

A 20 year quest

I have a policy when meeting junior players for the first time. I try to beat them as heavily as possible. Not because I am a cruel person, but because I know that they will one day become much stronger players and I want to retain some sort of advantage over them when they do. (A testament to this policy is that I have a 5-0 score against an Australian WIM, although to be fair, we haven't played since she was a teenager).
And if you can string together a couple of wins, every time you sit down against a promising young talent, the losing streak surely plays on their mind.
But it is possible to overcome such a psychological block. Lee Forace has been playing chess for near on 20 years (I can remember coaching him when he was still in primary school!). And for 20 years he has never beaten Milan Grcic. That is until last Monday night, when he inflicted the following defeat on him. (Of course Grcic didn't go down easily, dragging the game out until the almost the bitter end)

Forace,L - Grcic,M [B15]
Brindabella Snows, 29.06.2009

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.f3 e5 5.d5 Bb4 6.Bc4 exf3 7.Nxf3 Nf6 8.0-0 Bg4 9.Qe1 e4 10.Ne5 0-0 11.Bg5 Qb6+ 12.Kh1 Nbd7 13.Bxf6 Nxf6 14.Rxf6 gxf6 15.Nxg4 f5 16.Nf6+ Kg7 17.Qh4 h6 18.Nh5+ Kh7 19.Qf6 Rg8 20.Qxf7+ Kh8 21.Qf6+ Kh7 22.Qxf5+ Kh8 23.Qe5+ Kh7 24.Qxe4+ Rg6 25.Nf4 Rag8 26.Bd3 Bxc3 27.bxc3 cxd5 28.Qe7+ Kh8 29.Nxg6+ Rxg6 30.Bxg6 Qxg6 31.Re1 Qf5 32.Qe5+ 1-0

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What move number is the diagram from? There is no "(D)"

TrueFiendish said...

after black's 12th.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Shuan,

That was a really nice post.

Lee.

Anonymous said...

I think Spasskij was quoted for something like this: "Beat them the first time, then it's easier to get a draw later..."

That was the way he handled Kasparov and Seirawan.

Cheers

Henrik Mortensen