ASEAN chess today is led by four countries who together agreed to organise an ASEAN Masters Circuit to give their players opportunities to gain rating points and to make international title norms.
Each of these countries are therefore organising GM, IM, and Mixed events, all 12 player round robins, with 6 players from each host country and 2 players each coming from the other 3 participating countries.
Indonesia started the ball rolling in Tarakan early this year in grand fashion with simultaneous GM, IM (upgraded to GM “B”) and Mixed events while Singapore recently more modestly held just the Mixed event.
Despite not being one of the four, Malaysia was given two places by Indonesia in Tarakan and so Singapore decided to extend the same courtesy to Myanmar for on place and to help make up category and title requirements, they also provided two senior players to join Chia Chee Seng and I (both long retired and expected to be easy pickings for the young players!).
Actually not only did our participation help the women and girls playing get a chance at making WIM norms, but our relatively high ratings meant those with talent but with low ratings could also take part.
I would like to share some lessons from my first game in 12 years (or more) and it could not be more difficult as it was against 12 year old Graham Chua, eventual winner of the event!
Peter Long-Graham Chua
ASEAN Masters Circuit - Intchess Mixed – Singapore
We reached this complex position after 22 moves. White would like to activate his Bishops but on the other hand has lost control of d5 as the result of the e-pawn capturing to f5 and it seems that Black can block both the d-file and the long diagonal a2-g8 by putting a Knight on d5.
Here I needed to make a my first serious decision of the game as to how to proceed and I was attracted by a manoeuvre which locks in the Bishop while simultaneously weakening the white squares. But perhaps the simple and logical 23. Rd1 was called for.
23. Bh4 f6 24. Ne3 h5 25. Bc4+ Nfd5 26. Rad1 Kh8 27. Nf1 Rf8 28. Ng3 Nf4
Here I needed to make the second critical decision of the game.
I had originally planned 29. Rxd8 Qxd8 30. Rd1 but after 30. ... Qc7 31. Qd2 Nd5 32. Bb3 with the idea of 33. c4, Black had 32. ... Bh6. Now if 33. Kh1 I did not like 33. ... Kg7! and not only is pawn f6 being defended to free the Rook but my Bishop on h4 could even be lost.
Clearly now moving the Queen to avoid the discovery would give up penetrating down the d-file which would defeat the whole point of the sequence of moves beginning with 29. Rxd8 and 30. Rd1.
But even 12 years of rustiness is no excuse for not finding 31. Be6 Rd8 and now 32. c4 keeps things going nicely. Instead, convinced that keeping control of the white squares around Black's King was necessary, I decided on the following move and in doing so completely missed Black's response.
Very simply, in my mind the d3 square was still under control!
29. Be6 Ned5 30. b5 a6 31. c4 Nb4 32. Qe4 Nbd3 33. Rf1
It now dawned on me that Black had 33. ... Rd4 34. Qe3 Bh6! I would have had to play 35. Kh1 and wait to see what White would do. And I was now getting afraid my queenside pawns would be eaten up one by one!
But Black instead chose what he thought was a simpler way, making safe moves based on winning a pawn by capturing my Bishop on e6 and counting on my playing a piece less thanks to my other Bishop on h4.
33. … Nc5 34. Qb1 Qe7
Instead 34. … Nxa4 35. Qb4 axb5 36. cxb5 is probably winning. Of course 34. Qc2 fails to 34. … cxb5 and 35. … Nxe6 simply winning a piece.
35. bxc6 bxc6 36. Rxd8 Rxd8 37. Qb4 Re8 38. Rd1 Ncxe6 39. Qxe7 Rxe7 40. fxe6 Rxe6
I had anticipated this position and so captured on c6 to break up the pawns, get another file open and also put my Rook on the d-file. Despite White being a pawn up Black now cannot lose and in fact I have the only winning chances!
Why? To start with the Rook is a monster on the 7th Rank in combination with the Knight. And it is not clear who has the worst Bishop!
41. Rd7 Kg8 42. Nf5 Bf8 43. Ra7 c5 44. a5 Ng6 45. g3 Ne7 46. Ne3 Rd6 47. Rc7 Rc6 48. Rb7 Rd6 49. Rc7 Rc6 50. Rb7 1/2:1/2
Graham had 2 minutes left and I had quite a bit more at this stage (endgames come much easier to the old guys!). With the 30 second time increments time control having been reached I knew I would eventually win on time by creating threats which would force him to think long in order to avoid blunders but decided instead it was correct to allow a draw by repetition.
After all what did I have to play for? This young man had a big future ahead of him and why spoil his tournament in the very first round.
What lessons can we learn from this game? I think the first is that ultimately it comes down to being able to make the right decisions that arise a critical moments of a game. Of course we have to first recognise what these are but assuming we can, it is to important to remember that even in the heat of the battle we have to control our emotions, be objective and select the correct plan.
At the first critical moment of the game I chose what was probably not the best plan but it was certainly playable. But at the second critical moment I allowed myself to be distracted by an ideal based on the need to control the white squares around the King and subconsciously I must also have been worried about the placement of the Bishop on h4 and this affected my judgement.
In fact, this consideration so dominated my thinking that I failed to see that the correct plan where the fight for control of the d-file would necessarily also include this idea of Be6! to support an outpost in Black's position.
A final lesson is more for my young opponent. He chose to simplify, thinking he had found a win, but really I think he was tired and wanted to stop having to deal with complications and so fatally relaxed, thinking his work was done.
With experience comes resourcefulness based on understanding the demands of a position, something you will see repeated in my columns drawn from this event and often embarrassingly illustrated by many escapes from seemly lost positions, but the fact is that each time I was able to see where my only chance was.
In this game it was in breaking up the queenside pawns and in activating my Rook amongst them and in taking advantage of the bad Black King position to win time to do so.
And why do I think my young opponent expected 41. Rd8+ and missed 41. Rd7! which was instead played?
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