[BrianWall-ChessList] Chess Report Summer 07 Matt Lasley

[Brian Wall]

----- Forwarded message from Matt Lasley <mattlasley at hotmail.com> -----
    Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:18:51 -0600
    From: Matt Lasley <mattlasley at hotmail.com>



Okay, so I've been pretty delinquent in my chess reports through the summer. But
the tournament season will begin again soon, so I need to get back into
practice.

Lee had 2 Bar-B-Que tournaments this summer at Palmer Park. They were structured
as quads, with one quint. Tessa and Matthew both earned their first 1st place
trophies at that tournament under the grueling conditions of talking to
neighbors and mid tournament water fights. The 2nd was not so weather
cooperative for water fights, and had a smaller field. The prized awards were
the Bar-B-Qued chess pieces (not for the winners, but everyone still prized the
'almost won' pieces' unique flavor). Alexa's "almost queened pawn" consisted of
a pawn 'welded' to the head of a Queen in some firey furnace of Lee's design,
and Matthew's bent-bishop is still floating around the kitchen from a similar
torture. Lee was particularly entertained by one of the older kids' unknowingly
predictive suggestion that pieces by cooked along with the hot dogs. Lee had to
contain himself until award ceremony on that one.

Alexa also went to her first "grown up" tournament early in the summer. The
Southern Colorado Open was her debut, and she got a win and a draw out of it. I
think her chief lesson in that tournament is to be sure and read out the whole
attack before launching it. Those longer time controls and more experienced
players come up with adequate defenses to almost-successful attacks.


The next grown-up tournament ends tonight, which is the Poor Richards August
tournament. Instead of doing the tournament on the weekend, it's spead over the
month with each round occuring on successive weeks. So every Wednesday, we head
down to play in that. She is actually wiping me out. I have yet to win a game.
My half point was brought couresy of water damage to the house preoccupying me
with contracter oversight on the 3rd week.
Alexa beat the same guy she drew against in the So CO Open. When I felt the
shine of her beaming smile from several tables over, I knew something must be
up. Inspection of the board showed a royal fork threatening his King, Queen and
Rook simultaneously. What a thrill.
Last week was an even bigger thrill for my oldest daughter. She was paired with
Anthea. I've played Anthea in this tournament and in the parent sections of
Lee's tournaments, and she's very good (later, Walt told me she is the best
woman player in the state of Colorado -- very good indeed). I told Alexa before
her game that "I've almost beaten Anthea 3 times, so you can beat her!". That's
a bit generous to me, as 'almost winning' has a remarkably similar score as
outright losing, but it's a way to make me feel better about getting beat up by
a girl all the time. At least Anthea is a grown-up, Alexa beats me all the time
too. I was playing right next to Alexa, so it was easy to watch her game.
I pretty much thought "better luck next time" when I saw that she had given up a
Bishop for a pawn. I later saw that she walked into a pawn trap with her bishop
since the defending Knight she had pinned was in a different spot that she is
used to, which frees up more pawns to attack her if she tries to maintain the
pin. She did, and the Bishop died.
Later, I saw the wide open position with Alexa's Knight and Queen looking fairly
threatening on Anthea's queen side. When I heard the "clunk" of Anthea munching
a pawn with a rook to give "check" I knew she was fighting hard, which meant
Alexa had something. It turns out Alexa had a pretty mean attack. Anthea had
shifted a key Knight to join her own attack, but in the process released him
from defensive duties where he was much needed. The rook attack ended in an
exchange, which probably let Alexa even up in material, but it did not take
away the material on the queen side of the board, where Alexa's Queen and
Knight were still threatening. After one more move, and an apparant mate-in-2
or so attack, Anthea resigned.
That game was nearly 600 point upset for Alexa, and certainly her biggest to
date. It appears she just didn't give up, and pounced on a single key mistake
made by the stronger player.

At the Borders games, everyone has been doing well. Last week was another
Lasley-all-round victory, where everyone won their game. That's happened only
once before. I'm still delinquent in providing their victory chocolate, or some
similar reward for a team sweep.
This week was an interesting one as well. Tessa beat the #3 kid and ended the
night on the 4th spot on the ladder, which is an all time high for her. She has
been playing patiently and carefully and it shows. This also is the first time
that she is sitting higher than Alexa! A battle could be brewing at home!
Hopefully they will find time to play at home and add such games to their
experience to keep getting stronger.

Matt Lasley <mattlasley at hotmail.com>


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