A few months ago, I had an opportunity to take part in simul chess game arranged by Lake Wood Blue Claws Minor league Baseball team (on the 3rd August 2009). The guest player was Jenifer Shahade, the US Womens Champion of 2004 . To know about her other activities, such as authoring the highly popular book "Chess Bitch", check out the wiki page :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Shahade
She also has her own website : http://www.jennifershahade.com/
My level in chess was about USCF 1700 at the time of this game. I knew some openings, was familiar with some tactics and generally poor in the endgame, as you would expect a medium strength amateur to be. Here is the partially annotated game given below.
In a simul exhibition, usually all the participant gets black and the guest player gets white. So I would use "white" and "her" interchangeably, and "black" and "I" interchangeably.
She started with
1. e4 Sharp king pawn opening and I answered with
1 ... c5 planning to play Sicilian, the most popular defense as black against e4. The game followed as:
2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4. But at this point, white surprised me by taking back with the queen. A medium level player, such as me would naturally think that taking out the queen at this early stage is not so wise.
4. Qxd4 Nc6 5. Bb5 But you can never be very sure with stronger players. Black quickly developed the knight with a tempo of attacking the queen. White developed thebishop temporarily pinning my knight. Black played the natural move unpinning the knight, attacking the queen for the second time.
5 ... Bd7 White promptly took the knight with the bishop. At this point I was thinking whether to take back with the pawn or the bishop. But getting my bishop into the long diagonal seemed like a good idea and the capture by pawn would have lead to a temporary blockage for black's bishop. So a slight positive in one choice and a slight negative in the other choice made the job easy. What followed was a series of developing moves.
6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. Nc3 Nf6
8. Bg5 e6
9. O-O-O
Position after
6. Bxc6
After white long castled, black queen is right on the semi open file. I wanted to flee from that file castle and connect the rooks as soon as possible. But moving the queen away is not an option at the present moment, developing the dark squared bishop is necessary. So black did just that. She brought her other rook into action.
9 ... Be7
10. Rhe1 Qc7
Position after
10 ... Qc7 She continued with
11. e5 dxe5 12. Nxe5
At this point, I found that her pieces are all developed, well coordinated and occupying aggressive posts. Black king on the other hand is not castled, rooks are still in the corner. Even blacks pieces are not so well coordinated.
As a compensation perhaps black can win a pawn with 12 ... Bxg2. I was not so worried about 13. Rg1 I can always play 13 ... Rd8 and perhaps 14. Qxa7 Rxd1+ etc. But I was worried about 13. Nb5 and the black queen pushed to a sorry position as b8, while all the action is happening in the middle of the board. But my greed was provoking me to take on g2. But a strong player is giving a pawn for free. Shouldn't you hesitate to take it? At this point I was debating between:
12 ... Bxg2and
12 ... a6,
In this simul there was an interesting deal! Greg Shahade, brother of Ms Shahade and a IM himself (their father Mike Shahade is a FIDE master, family of chess players!), was giving a onetime advice to the simul players against Ms Shahade.
The catch is, it is one time advice only, so you have to choose the right moment to ask for the advice, and after taking the advice, you are on your own! The follow up moves are not a part of the deal. I guess I did the right thing to ask Mr Shahade to advice me at this point, and help me choose between these two moves.
He told me neither of these moves are any good (In a much politer way). He suggested a move that reflects the most basic principle, kings safety. He suggested me to castle. I did that. Then the game continued as:
12. ... O-O
13. Qh4
I could not wait to exchange the rooks or occupy the open diagonals myself. I also wanted to keep one of the rooks occupied in the king side defense, since white has all the pieces piling up in the king side. So black played :
13 ... Rad8 and white replied with:
14. Ng4! Position after
14 ... Ng4
Here the knight has to move, or else white becomes a pawn up with a better position, by simply playing 15. Nxf6 Bxf6 16. Bxf6 gxf6 17. Qxf6. Note that even if black exchanges the rook, the queen cannot come to the rescue at d8 since the other rook would be occupying the d-file. So black played
14 ... Nd5
15. Nxd5 Bxg5+
16. Qxg5 Bxd5
So far so good. It is simply a series of exchanges. But white has the potential of winning a pawn. White plays:
17. Nf6+ Kh8
18. Nxd5 Here if black takes on d5, then a pawn is lost immediately. So he played :
18 ... Qc5!
19. Qe7
18... Qc5 pins the knight and thus black regains the minor piece without loosing a pawn. But white could continue with 19 Re5. This would have taken the game in the different direction altogether. But it is still unclear. Black is perhaps slightly disadvantageous, but okay.
By 19. Qe7, white attacks the queen and the queen cannot be taken,since the knight can capture back and black becomes a piece down. Also, 19 ... exd5 or 19 ... Qxd5 is out of the question. In both cases, the black queen is lost. But the saving move for black is:
19 ... Rxd5
Position after
19 ... Rxd5
Note that white cannot capture the black rook at f8, neither can she capture the black rook at d5. Since she would loose the queen in both the cases. Capturing the minor piece with the rook, black brings defense to the queen and if white captures the black queen (which is somewhat forced), black recaptures with the rook and brings it out of the harm. So the game continued:
20. Qxc5 Rxc5
21. Rd7±
After a few moves, the game ended in a draw. The final position looked like :
