Virtual City of Belfast 2021 - Day 1 - hot off the press
On a beautiful May Bank holdiday Weekend Saturday. We had 3 rounds of the Virtual City of Belfast. With up to 9 players we had a range of chess skills and some excellent chess.
The players:
| Rating | Name |
| 1674 | Modestas Razbadauskas |
| 1642 | Mark Newman |
| 1400 | Amol Mohan Thoke |
| 1377 | Chris Armstrong |
| 1370 | Andrew Todd |
| 1278 | Martin C Butler |
| 1259 | Adrian Dornford-Smith |
| 895 | Paul Anderson |
| 640 | George Gamble |
Round 1 results
A few players took byes in round 1.
| Table | White | Lichess Id | Score | Black | Lichess Id | Score | Result | |||||||
| 1 | 1 | Modestas Razbadauskas | RAZBADAS | 0 | 7 | Adrian Dornford-Smith | Dornford | 0 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/HMTL8w2E | ||||
| 2 | 9 | Paul Anderson | Number_8 | 0 | 3 | Amol Mohan Thoke | amolthoke | 0 | 0 - 1 | https://lichess.org/Ewvj2MdC | ||||
| 3 | 2 | Mark Newman | ishi100 | 0 | 10 | George Gamble | ChessGeorge13 | 0 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/oRvSlXAWVFxG | ||||
| 0 | 6 | Martin C Butler | 0 bye | |||||||||||
| 0 | 4 | Chris Armstrong | 0 | 0.5 bye | ||||||||||
| 0 | 5 | Andrew Todd | 0 | 0.5 bye | ||||||||||
Alll the games went to rating. But Adrian pulled out all the stops against Modestas and there was a very exciting game.
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Paul is playing White against a newcomer to Ulster Chess Amol Mohan Thoke. In this position Paul has built up an excellent attack. But at a critical point misses the move 24. Ng5 when Black cant stop Qxh7+ and plays instead 24. g5?? which looses the initiative and allow the Knight to escape and defend. Amol went on to win. |
Adrian playing as Black against the very tough player Modestas Razbadauskas. Adrian has an advantage. But its complicated - I suppose all the best chess is complicated! Here he misses 43. Rf5 a brilliant move that allows the enprise Rook to be safe because o the threat Qd1#. The game went to a complicated endgame which could have been drawish. An excellent game of chess from both sides. Plenty of thinking here.... |
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Round 2 results
| Table | White | Lichess Id | Score | Black | Lichess Id | Score | Result | |||||||
| 1 | 3 | Amol Mohan Thoke | amolthoke | 1 | 1 | Modestas Razbadauskas | RAZBADAS | 1 | 1/2 - 1/2 | https://lichess.org/GZrfoobB | ||||
| 2 | 5 | Andrew Todd | Toddy-Alba |
0.5 | 4 | Chris Armstrong | pcmorphy | 0.5 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/QXXRIdU5 | ||||
| 3 | 10 | George Gamble | ChessGeorge13 | 0 | 6 | Martin C Butler | Butchinator1988 | 0 | 0 - 1 | https://lichess.org/uyFeSxid | ||||
| 4 | 7 | Adrian Dornford-Smith | Dornford | 0 | 9 | Paul Anderson | Number_8 | 0 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/GBrEHlUV | ||||
Amol Mohan Thoke upsets the competition by drawing against favourite Modestas Razbadauskas. The rest of the games go to rating.
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Amol here is playing White against Modestas and gets a good position. But looses the initiative by missing the fork of Rook and King 50. g6?? Ke3?? 51. a5? Nd4+ winning the Rook. The game went on to a draw. A very good result by Amol against one of Ulsters tough players. |
George is White against Martin Butler (a relatively new player to the UCU). Here I like Georges more developed position. The Black squared Black Bishop is for the moment shut in. The recommended move here is to push the d pawn 12 d5 giving the player with development more space and threatening the Knight. Martin went on to win the game. |
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Round 3 results
| Table | White | Lichess Id | Score | Black | Lichess Id | Score | Result | |||||||
| 1 | 1 | Modestas Razbadauskas | RAZBADAS | 1.5 | 5 | Andrew Todd | Toddy-Alba | 1.5 | 0 - 1 | https://lichess.org/MzilpLZs | ||||
| 2 | 6 | Martin C Butler | Butchinator1988 | 1 | 3 | Amol Mohan Thoke | amolthoke | 1.5 | 0 - 1 | https://lichess.org/JNzzFGvA | ||||
| 3 | 4 | Chris Armstrong | pcmorphy | 0.5 | 7 | Adrian Dornford-Smith | Dornford | 1 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/JngUBNGj | ||||
| 4 | 9 | Paul Anderson | Number_8 | 0 | 10 | George Gamble | ChessGeorge13 | 0 | 1 - 0 | https://lichess.org/L570xKcQ | ||||
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Here we have as Black Adrian Dornford-Smith against Chris Armstrong. Chris has just pushed 10. e4 and the question posed is what to take it with. Recommend is 10. ... Nxe4 followed by 11. Nxe5. Such subtle differences lead to totally different games. Chris went on to win the game. |
I just like positions where things are being attacked and you have to work through the position to get your best move. This just looks complicated. |
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Modestas as White against Andrew Todd - a challenging endgame. Andrew went on to win the game. At this stage looks difficult for White to stop the g pawn. But earlier was it possible? - To love the endgame is to love chess. |
The standings
New comer Amol Mohan Thoke leads the tournament closely followed on the same points by Andrew Todd - they play each other tomorrow.
| Rank | Name | Score | Buchholz-HiLo | Buchholz | PS | Rating |
| 1 | Amol Mohan Thoke | 2.5 | 2.5 | 4.0 | 5 | 1400 * |
| 2 | Andrew Todd | 2.5 | 2 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 1370 * |
| 3 | Modestas Razbadauskas | 1.5 | 2.5 | 6.0 | 4 | 1674 * |
| 4 | Mark Newman | 1.5 | 2.5 | 4.0 | 3.5 | 1642 * |
| 5 | Chris Armstrong | 1.5 | 1.5 | 5.0 | 2.5 | 1377 * |
| 6 | Martin C Butler | 1 | 1.5 | 4.5 | 2 | 1278 * |
| 7 | Adrian Dornford-Smith | 1 | 0.5 | 4.0 | 2 | 1259 * |
| 8 | Paul Anderson | 1 | 0 | 3.5 | 1 | 895 * |
| 9 | Patrick O’Donnell | 0.5 | 1.5 | 5.0 | 1.5 | 1000 * |
| 10 | George Gamble | 0 | 0.5 | 4.5 | 0 | 640 * |
Tomorrow the competition continues with 2 more rounds followed by a Zoom closing ceremony.
