Monday 18 March 2013

Learning from the kid - by Junior Tay

I followed the GM Hou Yifan's simul game against FM Tin Jingyao online with great interest as the game was a g3 Vienna game line that I had read about in New In Chess Yearbook 101 which Israelite GM Alexander Finkel had analysed. However, what Finkel did not explain is why White had to weaken his Kingside with g3-g4 just to get a reasonable game (see the Hou - Tin game below).  Well, Jingyao saved me the trouble of working it out myself.                  Now, so having learnt from the 'Crouching Tiger' how to handle the position, it's time to apply and what better way than to go online and try it out? Anyway, in local praxis, hardly anyone today plays the Vienna game, let alone the g3 variation. Just 3 days after the Hou YF simul, I managed to play Jingyao's line and was rewarded with the same type of attacking possibilities.           And just 10 days ago, I once again got a g3 Vienna and well, deja vu.           Anyway, the message I'm driving at is that during a tourney, it's good to watch and learn from others, you might pick up one or two useful things. The most rewarding example I know of is IM Hsu Li Yang who after coming back from the super strong Oakham Junior 1992 event (with the likes of Shirov, Kramnik, Bologan, Akopian, Tiviakov, Svidler, Rublevsky and Adams taking part), he picked up at least two lines from GM Akopian in the English Reversed Sicilian and the French Rubinstein. In fact, he even managed to win a parallel game (which Akopian had destroyed Andrew Webster with) against a 2500 IM in the First Saturday IM event later that year, helping him to gain an IM norm.

2 comments:

  1. It's a pity Urchan is too busy to write! That was good reporting.

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