Saturday, August 05, 2006

Marshall attacks Eraclides

Hi Pilgrims,
Yes, I once had the pleasure to cross swords with the great Marshall. No, I am not that old! I refer to Kate Marshall, whom I played in 1978. Wow - that does feel so long ago. It was 1978 BI (Before Internet). Imagine that.

City of Melbourne Under 1600
October 1978

This was my first crossboard tournament. At 26 years of age, I was a late non bloomer, and I got smashed around a lot. I had trouble with the chess clock (why does time have to move so quickly?) not to mention the other chess players. I only have the scoresheets of a few games.

Kate Marshall (you have to love that surname if you care for ‘real chess’) and I had already played correspondence chess against each other. A King’s Gambit and a Sicilian, both of which I won (see later), but in crossboard chess she was much the better player. Eventually she became one of Australia’s best female players in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

In this game I played tentatively because I had been belted a few times already in this tourney. I used the ‘scared rabbit’ technique, to see if I could improve my tournament position and lift myself up from the bottom of the scorecard.

Kate took a bit too long to use her opening initiative. I gave up the centre (who needs all that space? The world is too crowded for such selfishness) and tried to use my pieces to hold the key squares. I fought back well and the game was drawn by agreement. I stood reasonably well at the end, but time trouble was devouring me as usual, and besides, I needed to replenish my supply of carrots.

Round 6
Kate Marshall VERSUS George Eraclides
Queens Gambit Irregular
1. d4 d5
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Nf6
4. cxd5 Nxd5?!
5. e4 Nxc3
6. bxc3 Be7
7. Bc4 O-O
8. Ne2 a6
9. O-O b5
10. Bb3?! Bb7
11. Ng3 c5
12. Be3 c4!?
13. Bc2 Nd7
14. f4 Qc7
15. f5 e5!
16. Nh5 Nf6
17. dxe5 Nxh5
18. Qxh5 Qxe5
19. Bd4 Bc5!
20. Bxc5 Qc5+
Drawn by agreement

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