Lebanesechess.com

Mistakes, Technique, and Creativity

The game between Mohamad Farhat and AbdelAziz ElMahmoud was decided too early by the mishandling of the former of his opening. Losing several tempos on the queenside by White was severely punished by AbdelAziz, with his pieces dominating the queenside, netting him a vital central d4-pawn. The rest was a matter of technique.

The Pirc defense was used by Gen. Hassan Jouni against Fasial Khairallah. I don’t know what pushed Gen,Jouni to choose a set up against a player who knows about the fianchetto setup inside-out. Possibly a bad hint was passed to him? Or lack of time to prepare? Anyway, Black’s position disintegrated too soon and was prolonged a little bit just by playing intertie.

I remember Amr, when at age of 15, entered the Lebanese history by winning the Lebanese championship title. And now he is facing the 14 years old Giorgio Kaloust, one year younger than him, who succeeded in qualification to play in the prestigious event. But the difference of level of play and experience is too big and clear. Dear Giorgio, you cannot play the Dragon variation in this manner. It is suicide. Was it psychological debacle? I think your trainer will have a lot of work to do (BTW, do you have a trainer? If not, try to engage one as soon as possible. You have a great potential, dear).

Switching from one opening to another in the same game by transposition og moves was the scenario adopted by Mohamad ElHabash against Mahdi Kaouri. Jumping from a double fianchettos system, to an English opening, then to Sicilian setup with the Maroczy bind must cost Mohamad to much energy, as Mahdi played the classical and normal moves that worked perfectly with this type of middle game. The endgame reached was advantageous to Black due to the isolated white c-pawn, a passive white bishop against a strong black knight, and a dominant black king. Mohamad’s counter play came a little bit short of a tempi. A nice technical win by Kaouri.

It was just pure coincidence that I kept my comments on the most exciting game of a round till the end of the report. And the game between Ahmad Najjar and Tarek Moudallal is not an exception in this, but exception by its beauty, ideas, fighting pirit and creativity. After a tricky transposition of moves (again!)Tarek adopted the Dutch setup against Ahmad’s English opening. The creative offer of a sacrifice of the black c- pawn was still theory, but seems declining it has put Ahmad out of his form. Tarek took the initiative, and with a very creative play, he coordinated his minor pieces in an exemplary manner, resulted in winning the exchange. Ahmad’s attempt to win a couple of black pawns as compensation could fail if Tarek continued his attack on the white king. But entering the endgame phase gave Ahmad some hope to equalize, and he almost succeeded, till making a tactical mistake, by allowing Tarek to return the exchange with winning chances even with 2 pawns down. The 2 connected black pawns on the queen side, supported by an active rook were difficult to hold, even for an endgame expert  like Ahmad played the technical phase à la perfection, killing any hope of the generated play on the king side from Ahmad.  A very beautiful game, and deserve to be also a candidate for winning the (most beautiful game of the championship) prize.

Click here to download the games.