Thursday 12 September 2019

Shaun blows a sandshoe

While my second game in the 2019 World Cup had the expected result, I am disappointed with how I played at the end. One of my usual plans against the English Opening is to play a reversed Closed Sicilian, but after what happened in the first game, I decided playing the same line a tempo down wasn't a good idea.
What I chose instead wasn't that great either, but it did make Ding think for a good 15 minutes on move 5. My first real mistake was putting the knight onto b6 instead of playing an immediate c5, and after that the pawn on e5 cramped my position. The other issue was that every time I wanted to castle, Bxh7 was devastating. The I got to a position where I though I could castle, as he couldn't take my hanging bishop on d7 (Rd8 wins the Queen), but I'd stupidly overlooked b5 first, when my trick no longer works.
So out in 2 games as expected. I am staying on for a couple of days to be a spectator, before heading back to Australia on Saturday.

1 comment:

Tony Dowden said...

Hi Shaun,

What a fabulous experience - playing two match games against the World #3 and making him #2 in the process!

Cheers, Tony D