I Calculated A Mate In 17 OTB

Recently I played in 2 team events. The first one didn't go my way as in only 8 rounds I managed to draw a 1600, lose a -3 position and lose in 16 moves scoring 3.0 points and losing 23 FIDE. So I had to lock in for the second tournament. It is from this second tourney that I want to share 2 games from. Starting from the mentioned in the title mate in 17.

Round 3 — Bro might be stockfish

I faced a lower-rated opponent and he opened with 1.d4. I just picked up 1...Nf6 still building a repertoire, so I wasn't super confident. Luckily my opponent goes for 2.Bf4 — the Accelerated London System. Even though I played against it like thrice online before the game, I was really happy to see this and try out a fresh weapon.

My opponent finds a creative way to progress in the position, but it tactically doesn't work out. The winning idea is Qa5–b5. My suspision was White's best is to go back to c3 with the knight (I was right), but I expected 12.c4 nontheless. After 12...b5 13.Nc3 allows simple b4–Bd7–Bxa4, so I thought White has to play the akward 13.cxb5—Nc3 and meet b4 with Nb5, which isn't an ideal place for the knight.

At first I was annoyed I missed 42.Rd7, but under a further inspection I found the winning continuation. This position is M17 for black, if you want you can try to find Black's moves and White's longest way to prolong the game.

We didn't get this exact sequence in the game, but I'm proud to first accurately calculate and evaluate different responses 6 moves after 11...Qa5 and then finnish the game with correctly calculated mate in 17.

Round 5 — Colorado OTB!

In my recent post about the Colorago Countergambit I said it's OTB cerfitifed, so when I got another chance to play it I took it with no hesitation. This time against a serious player — rated 1910 FIDE.

And I equalize on 4th move of the game. Now my opponent has what I thought to be a very abvious choice. 9.Qd3 runs into e5 with tempo and 9.Qg8 runs into Bf5 with a tempo (threatning Rg6–Re6+ winning the queen), but my opponent spent another 10 minutes and missed this idea.

A very dominant victory. With another win in the 6th round I'm sitting at 5/6 on the first board with 2 rounds to go. That weekend I won all 4 games, which I'm very proud of. The last 2 games will be played 28–29 march. I'm obviously hoping to win both of them to get a gold medal on first board, which would be a great bounce-back after going 3/8 in last league.

Here's the game study and until the next time!