[BrianWall-ChessList] Chess Report 12-14 Lasley Crab Report

[Brian Wall]

----- Forwarded message from Matt Lasley <mattlasley at hotmail.com> -----
    Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:31:02 -0700



Chess report time.

Last week, Alexa took the top spot at the Borders club. I think I wrote about
that already.

On Saturday, Lee's December tournament was happening. Only my two rated players
decided to go, as the rest were making a Gingerbread house. (Gingerbread
mansion! With marshmallow garland! Where did that come from?!? and Jelly beans,
jelly donuts (shape, not pastry) real gingerbread, icing....... man... take the
picture and get out of the way, I'm hungry!).

The 7-12 section was very tough, with Alexa's first pairing going against Philip
Scudder. She finished with a 2/5 in a very tough tournament where even the twins
came in 4th & 5th.  In her game with Philip, she didn't make big errors, only
small ones. She got the Queen a bit overtasked, and the result was two sets of
doubled pawns. Eventually Philip got the extra pawn out of that and ran her out
of time in a 4 on 5 pawn with Kings endgame. Their time wasn't more than 2
minutes different, so I thought a great effort by Alexa. It seemed in each game
she would get to the point where she stopped taking notation (time short) and
was pretty even. So, the time management is improving and play looks solid and
improving.

Shania logged her 4th straight positive score, getting another 3/5 and 5th place
trophy.

I dropped both my games by walking into forks. In Anthea's Crab (Yes, I fell to
the crab, see note #1 about blunder-rate climbing) I could recapture with
kNight or Queen. I forgot the queen was busy, and captured with her, taking
defense away from the c7 pawn and getting my RRQ all forked. >sigh<. In Adin's
game, I had his King exposed, and his kNight on the run, but when the Queen
needed to step away from the line of fire of a Rook, she walked into a fork,
and the fleeing kNight turned on his pusuers, and upended the whole game. Rats.

I used to play with crabs at the beach in Florida. I'd pounce on their holes
while they were out, so when they dashed back, they couldn't get home, and
would be exposed on the beach. The small crabs ( smaller than your palm) would
try run towards the dry sand and the bushes, they were afraid of the surf. The
bigger crabs (palm sized to hand sized) would run to the sea, where they could
stand the surf, and hide below the sand. I could catch them in my slurpee cup
by how I blocked their escape.
   But, one day, there was this crab with attitude. I stomped his hole and he
looked up at me and was ticked. He was medium-sized, but I'd have expected him
to run to the bushes. He stood up on his legs, raised his claws as if to say
"put 'em up, sucker... you deserve a beating for squashing my hole!". I just
looked at him. He didn't scare me off, so then he went on the attack. He ran
right at my shoe, and began whacking it with his claws. He even pulled my laces
loose (part of a strategic plan to have me fall on my head later when tripping
over my laces). He would back off and look as if to say "had enough yet? You
better get moving, you monster! There's more where that came from!". If I
kicked him away, he kept coming. He never ran off. Like the Black Knight at the
bridge, no disadvantage dissuaded him. I'm sure as I left thinking it was a
draw, he claimed a win.  That is the crab I think the _Play Chess Like an
Animal_ book has in mind.

Okay, so we went to Monday Borders

Alexa was defending the top spot against Rhett. She was off to a lead, and I
thought she'd defend! But, she made some subtle (that means dad doesn't
understand chess well enough to figure it out) errors in the endgame, and when
the Queens were re-introduced to the board, Rhett gobbled up the extra pawns,
and ran her out of time on the way to beating her with his own spare pawn at
that point. A tough up & down game, but hopefully she'll see the need to
improve on the endgame stuff, that the Langseths have no doubt had beaten into
their brain by DuWayne.
Tessa was playing Sherry, and was in a far superior position, even after dumping
a rook to a bishop when she moved it on the same diagonal as her queen. But, the
clock is a merciless ally to the Langseth family, and Tessa lost on time. The
Lasley's need more time management help (Does Stephen Covey play chess?).
I believe Matthew had a game where he led, then fell behind, then got a draw. A
bloody draw, as is his style.
Shania did not win, but no longer gives me synopses. I am going to have to watch
her games more closely or convince her to record her games again.
Caleb had a quick one where his opponant won quicker than I could spot the game.

This weekend is Adin's Springs Ranch Open. My rated girls are playing again, and
Shania has a more-then-reasonable shot at the under 1000 prize, in addition to
the K-3 section. If anyone has the Library's "Karpov vs Kasparov" book from the
last SRES tournament ( I left it with a pocket board on the risers at the far
side of the stage), please turn it in to the library! Otherwise, I'll owe 1.5
entry fees to them, and the city will be robbed of a chess resource.

Merry Christmas!

--Matt


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