Chess

Anyone who's been around me long enough knows that I can be moderately obsessed with the game of chess.  While I haven't played competitively for a number of years in USCF tournament play, I've probably logged around 40,000 games in the past 20 years... most of these lightning or blitz games, and at the time of this website, reached the ranks of a class A player, just below Expert status.  I recently found a couple of my old games online, and thought I'd add them to my site to share a little piece of the game I love with others.

This game was one of my favorites, because of the opponent I got the chance to play.  It was 2010, and International Master Emory Tate stopped by the Kolby Chess Club to play a 28 board simul against it's members.  At the end of the night, Tate won 24 of his games, lost 3, and surrendered a lone draw... to me!  I suspect I could have fought for a win here, and I might be slightly behind in material, but I probably could have pushed for a win.  But he offered, and I accepted.

This was a tournament game I played in 2009, in the second round of the Kolby Chess Club Championship.  My opponent was rated approximately 200 points higher than myself.  I found a number of tricky tactics, including a queen sacrifice, and ended the game in strong fashion.

If there was one game in my life that I could change the outcome, it would have been this one.  Frisco is this quirky chess personality in the bay area.  Known for authoring chess books, writing chess columns, and teaching kids, I used to show up a little early to the Kolty Chess Club on tournament nights to catch the tail end of his lecture.  

One day, I listened to him talk about one of the main lines of the Queen's Gambit, describing a particular line as the only sane way to play as black.  "What about the Tarakower Defense?" I had asked.  This was something that I played regularly.  One of my favorite games of all time was game 3 of the Fischer Spassky World Championship in 1972... and I had adopted the Tarakower as my favorite way to counter white from any opening.  "Its crap, no real master would play it", he replied.  I was stunned, and shrunk away.  Never mind that plenty of the top players delve into the Tarakower...  This was my game, and he brushed me aside like the patzer he thought I was.

A few months later, I got my first and only chance to play Frisco in a tournament game.  I relished at the thought of making him eat his words.  As you'll see below, I was mere moves from shocking a potential master, before letting my guard down just long enough for him to throw out one last haymaker that took me to the mat.