Illness meant not all of round 4 was played last night – and the results meant that Gerry was the biggest gainer without lifting a pawn.
With Mihailo v Gerry, Zdravko v Anastasija and Ross v Desmond all postponed, there was a chance for some of the pretenders to the title to put some pressure on Gerry. The first results, however, came from lower down the draw – Des was first to claim victory when getting a protected passed pawn against Ger, which ultimately proved decisive. For Ger, it’s looking the friendly bye in the last round; for Des, the warming glow of a first ever competitive victory.
A board lower, John Healy’s dismal tournament so far saw him keen to start making amends against Paddy Power. Paddy played a decent opening, coming through the King’s Gambit reasonably well, frustrating John into pushing a few kingside pawns. This brought the game more into John’s territory and, while Paddy grabbed a pawn on c2, John helped himself to the one on h6, after which destruction followed. A rook was able to make its way to f6 with impunity, and the game didn’t last much longer than that.
On the bottom board, Mark was up against Bodley team-mate Luke-Andrew; he sacced a central pawn to try fork queen and bishop, but when, on the move after, he had the chance to split bishop and queen to win the bishop, he missed it. However, Luke-Andrew later hung a piece, and Mark also won the pawn back, and seemed to be cruising. The game then reached R+5 v R+3, where Mark was maybe too quick to take pawns rather than protect them. With material rapidly dwindling, the game ended in a drawn K+P v K position – via a scare where Luke-Andrew could have threatened mate, forcing Mark to sac his rook – with Mark down to a king. Still, Mark’s off the mark (if I may!)
Meanwhile, Stephen, conqueror of Zdravko in the first round, was up against Eddie in only the second game featuring consecutive seeds (Ciarán v Alex in round 3 being the other). Eddie picked up a pawn early on, but it was a fairly big one – Stephen had no e or d pawns, while Eddie was missing an a-pawn. As Eddie’s pawns started to roll, Stephen threw most of his pieces towards Eddie’s king, but Eddie weathered that attack and his pawns rolled home for victory.
That left the top two games, both of which were fairly tight. I’d swotted up on the 7. Qg4 Winawer only for Ciarán to call my bluff and play 7. Nf3, a more quiet line. He made up for that by gambitting a pawn shortly after and getting pressure against my b pawn, rather weak after an earlier a5 push to control the annoying Winawer a3-f8 diagonal. Still, I held on and later felt brave enough for an f6 and g5 break before – still a pawn up – offering a draw, which Ciarán accepted, wussing out of the game as he put it! Fritz actually gave my last move as about the only real blunder from either of us, going from dead level to +1, the only time in the game Fritz’s evaluation went higher than 1 for either side. A proper hard-fought GM draw so! 🙂
But it wasn’t really; Dylan v Odhrán was. A proper clash of styles, entering the middlegame, Dylan had most of his pawns on the fourth looking to prise open Odhrán’s very solid-looking formation. After Dylan won a central pawn with a nice tactic, Odhrán struck back and wound up with two pieces for a rook and two pawns. Later, the material swung again, and Dylan had bishop and two against bishop, knight and one, with all the pawns having ventured into the opposite half of the board. There’s always drawing chances in endgames where the number of pieces equals the number of pawns, and that’s how it ended here – Dylan’s bishop had to stop Odhrán’s pawn, before a draw was agreed in (something like) this curious position –
As soon as either pawn is promoted, a piece will sac itself, and there’s no way to avoid the draw.
So Gerry is still joint top with a whole match in hand; if he beats Mihailo, he’s guaranteed to at least reach a blitz play-off. It’s very tight alongside him; the top seven players are separated by half a point – Alex and Ciarán on 3/4, Mihailo on 2½/3, myself, Dylan and Eddie on 2½/4, to be joined by either (or both) of Ross and Desmond, and maybe Zdravko as well. There’s only 12 matches left, but there’s a hell of a lot yet to play for!