Monday 18 October 2010

Keeping those early games

From the earliest stage of my chess career I kept a record of my games. The first 50 or so games were in a score book, the rest on tournament score sheets. Unfortunately (and despite the best efforts of my wife) I mislaid the vast bulk of my score sheets (They are either buried under vast piles of paper in my study/garage, or were left in the boot of my Torana, which was sent to the wreckers 20 years ago).
At least the early games survived, and to this day have their uses. As the chess played was of a fairly basic variety, I use them when coaching new players to demonstrate both the advantage, and disadvantage, of following basic chess principles. For example the following game is an example of the opening 'hack' where I happily sacrifice my pawns in the opening in return for an attack against my opponents king. Clearly it isn't perfect chess, but it is 'obvious' chess and as such is easy to explain.

Press,Shaun - Hartstein,Alan [C21]
ACT Junior Championship, 04.12.1982

1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2 Nc6 6.Nf3 Bb4+ 7.Nc3 Nf6 8.e5 Ng4 9.0-0 0-0 10.Nd5 Re8 11.Nd4 Nxd4 12.Qxd4 Be7 13.Qxg4 g6 14.Nf6+ Bxf6 15.exf6 d6 16.Qg5 Kh8 17.Bxf7 Rf8 18.Bxg6 1-0

1 comment:

Paul said...

Good to see the Danish Gambit Shawn!