Sunday 17 December 2017

Mozambique - Australia 4-0


Chess is a spectator sport, or at least will be when all tournaments livestream their games as the Indian team does. Chessbase India has daily reports on the tournament and various websites including 

and

 show all the games live and also archive them so one can follow this exciting event from anywhere.

The match against Mozambique looked easy on paper and I was optimistic that we may be able to have an early dinner for a change, and after the opening, it looked that way.

Sophie played the opening in classic style, developing all her pieces in the centre of the board, which soon netted her a pawn. Then with some clever tactics, she won more material, swapped down to a winning endgame and soon brought home the point.

The other games looked good but all of a sudden turned. Gordon, who looked to be mating early suddenly got his pieces tangled and at one point could have been lost had his opponent sacrificed his queen for two rooks. He didn't and Gordon got his beloved increment play, like in almost every game but then won a rook with a mate threat. 

Isaac too, after winning a pawn in the opening, suddenly left a rook hanging for no good reason. After the complications, he was a pawn down for less than nothing but his opponent left his back rank unguarded. 3-0. The spectre of a loss had been avoided.

Hughston got a nice edge out of the opening but failed to find the quickest way and had to convert a pawn up ending, that hovered close to a draw for a while, but great technique and patience gave us a slightly fortuitous 4-0

We are playing the South Africa A team today and are fairly evenly matched. Carelessness will not go unpunished today. If we play well we will be back on 50% and face a very srtong country tomorrow. Wish us luck :-)



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